Skinny Italian: Eat It and Enjoy It (15 page)

A
RRABBIATA, THE
A
NGRY
S
AUCE

I’m a pretty laid-back person, but certain things piss me off. Pathological
puttanas
, for one. So now seems like the perfect time to introduce Arrabbiata, the spiciest of Italian sauces.

Now, I like it hot, but if you want to tone it down, only use ½ teaspoon of the red pepper flakes. I like it best over penne, but some people use linguine or spaghetti.

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

½ medium onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 teaspoon crushed hot red pepper

3 ½ cups “The Quickie” Tomato Sauce (see
page 117
)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the hot pepper.

2.
Stir in the tomato sauce, lemon juice, and pepper. Bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until lightly thickened, at least 15 and up to 40 minutes. The longer it simmers, the hotter the sauce. If the sauce gets too thick, stir in a little water. Just before serving, stir in the parsley. Serve hot, as a pasta sauce.

Slow-Cooker Sauce Shortcuts

Since most Italian sauces only taste better the longer they simmer, ideally, you should have a saucepan sitting on the back burner pretty much all day long. But for those of us with small children (or a fear of burning down the house), leaving a large, uncovered pot of hot sauce around isn’t so practical.

I’m not a big slow-cooker person; I usually only use my Crock-Pot to keep sauces hot when I’m having a party. But they come in super handy when you want to keep a sauce a’simmering.

Just prepare any recipe like you normally would, in a saucepan, until it comes to the simmering stage. Then pour (or ladle, if you tend to be a sloppy pourer like me and don’t want a hot mess) the sauce into your slow cooker. Set it, forget it, and you’ll have an even better sauce (tucked safely away in the corner of the counter) with half the worry.

Who Is This “Alfredo” and What Has He Done to My Sauce?

Now that we’ve covered my favorite red sauces, I want to give you the recipes for the best other colored sauces: white and green.

When I ask you to picture a classic Italian “white” sauce, I bet you immediately think of the sauce served on fettuccine Alfredo in restaurants across the country. Creamy and white, right? More like gluey, gooey, and a heart attack on a plate! Gagging . . .

Prepare yourself: there is no such thing as Alfredo sauce in Italy. Alfredo is a big, fat, American lie. A lie you’re best to forget you ever knew, as there is nothing remotely redeeming about it. It drowns the pasta. It makes your stomach feel like it’s filled with cement. I know I’m being harsh on the sauce, and maybe you’ve enjoyed it before, but stop. Now. It’s not Italian, and it’s
so
not healthy. You might as well eat a stick of butter coated in lard, deep-fried in funnel-cake batter . . . with a cigarette.

The true “white” sauce in Italy is known as
pasta bianco
(“pasta in white”) in the southern regions, and
pasta al burro
(“pasta with butter”) in the north. Traditionally, before the tomato was introduced to Italy, cheese was the normal topping of pasta dishes, followed by oils and herbs. Butter was also used, although nowhere near as much as people put in their American dishes. An Italian white sauce has nothing in it but cheese, butter, and maybe a little pepper or parsley. Light and delicious.

In 1914, a restaurant owner in Rome, Alfredo di Lelio, supposedly created his own version of the traditional
pasta al burro
by tripling the amount of butter used. His wife was pregnant at the time and couldn’t keep food down (I never had that problem, but I have lots of friends who, no matter how sick they were when they were pregnant, could still manage to eat butter). The extra butter did the trick, his wife started eating again, and Alfredo added his
al burro
sauce to his menu. Thirteen years later, in 1927, silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks ate at the Roman restaurant while on their honeymoon, and they fell in love with the white sauce. The resulting media frenzy (kind of like when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are photographed at the McDonald’s drive-through) traveled to America, where everyone tried to copy “Alfredo’s” sauce. Not able to re-create the creamy butter found in Italy, or find the exact kind of cheese, American cooks added cream, extra butter, and even egg yolks to the sauce, and kindly named the sloppy mess after poor Alfredo. (Don’t feel sorry for him, though. He went on to own a bunch of restaurants, even one at Disney World.)

I’m going to teach you how to make the delicious
pasta al burro
, because you just can’t eat another serving of the bastardized version. According to their own nutritional guide, a serving of fettuccine Alfredo at the Olive Garden has 1,220 calories and 75 grams of fat (47 grams of the evilest of all, saturated fat!). Traditional
pasta al burro
has almost one third of the calories and half the fat content (plus it tastes way better). I’m going to go one better, and give you my own special skinny version.

S
KINNY
P
ASTA AL
B
URRO

The deliciousness of this dish is directly related to the quality of the ingredients you use. Don’t think regular Parmesan cheese will cut it. You have to get the best Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese you can find (aged twenty-four months is perfection). You can also use other pastas besides fettuccine. My kids love this with penne (much more fork friendly!).

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 pound fettuccine, preferably fresh

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Large pinch of minced fresh parsley

½ cup (2 ounces) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1.
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil over high heat.

2.
Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter together in a large saucepan over medium heat until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat.

3.
Add the fettuccine to the water and cook according to the package instructions until al dente. Fresh pasta cooks really quickly, so don’t overcook it. Drain, reserving about ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water.

4.
Transfer the fettuccine to the saucepan with the butter mixture. Add the salt, pepper, and parsley. Return the saucepan to low heat. Toss, adding enough of the pasta water to make a glossy sauce that isn’t watery or gluey. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with the cheese, and serve immediately.

It’s Easy Being Green

The last great sauce you need in your recipe box is pesto. The tasty green sauce was invented in the Liguria region of Italy (if you think of Italy as a boot, Liguria is the top front, where you would put your hands to slip it on your foot; basically the northwest coastline).

Ligurians have been making pesto since Roman times, although it only became popular in the United States in the 1980s. The creamy basil and garlic sauce is a big part of the Ligurians’ healthy diet. (Ligurians live longer than almost anyone else on the planet, beaten only by the Japanese and the Icelanders. With all due respect, I’d much rather eat bread and pesto my whole life than cold fish!)

Pesto
comes from
pestare
, the Italian word for “pound” or “bruise.” That’s because, traditionally, pesto is made with a mortar and pestle (the heavy little bowl and the fun,
National Geographic
–like stick with a rounded end). Even though you can make pesto in a food processor, the flavors are best if you hand-crush them because you want the basil leaves bruised and juiced, not pureed.

I named this last sauce after my newest baby: Audriana. She’s gorgeous, of course, and not the least bit green, but I did feel a little bruised after she came out, so there you go.

A
UDRIANA’S
P
ESTO

There are dozens of variations, and you can play around and add your own choice of herbs, nuts, or cheeses. Here’s my favorite pesto recipe, fresh from the Italian Riviera.

1/3 cup pine nuts

1 ½ cups packed fresh basil leaves, well rinsed and dried in a salad spinner

3 garlic cloves, crushed under a knife and peeled

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1.
Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and cook, stirring often, until lightly toasted, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate and cool completely.

2.
To make the pesto by hand, crush a handful of the basil leaves in a large mortar (at least 2-cup capacity), pushing down with the pestle and moving your wrist in a circular movement to squeeze and crush, but not pound, the leaves. Keep adding basil leaves until they have all been crushed. Add the garlic and crush it into the mixture. Gradually work in about half of the oil. Now add the pine nuts, and crush them in. Finally, work in the cheese, then the remaining oil. Season with the salt and pepper.

3.
To make the pesto in a food processor, fit the processor with the metal chopping blade. With the machine running, drop the garlic through the feed tube to mince the garlic. Add the pine nuts and pulse until finely chopped. Add the basil and pulse until finely chopped. Add the cheese and pulse to combine. With the machine running, gradually pour in the oil. Season with the salt and pepper.

4.
Transfer the pesto to a small covered container. Pour a small amount of oil over the surface of the pesto to seal it. Cover and refrigerate for up to 1 month. Stir well before using.

Note:
To use the pesto as a sauce for pasta, boil 1 pound of pasta (linguine or spaghetti are nice) according to the package directions until al dente. Drain, reserving ½ cup of the pasta cooking liquid. Return the pasta to the pot. Add ½ cup pesto and toss, adding enough of the pasta liquid to loosen the pesto and coat the pasta. Season again with salt and pepper and serve hot.