Some rules you absolutely need to follow.

I have already given you some truly Italian pasta recipes, some have been easier, some longer and some a bit particular.

However I will now take a step back just to make sure that you know the first basic, but so important ground stones of the Italian kitchen. By this, what I’m trying to say is: this post will be a basic but important learning session you just can’t miss.

First of all let’s take a big saucepan or stockpot, large enough to contain all the pasta you like to cook. This rule is especially important in case you are preparing long pasta. Fill up the pot with 1 liter of water for every 100 gr of pasta. All this water is to allow the pasta to not stick to each other and to maintain a constant temperature during the cooking process. When the water starts to boil add 10-12gr of salt (the big grains one) per liter. Don’t add it before the water starts to boil; salty water takes longer time before it starts to boil.

After a couple minutes you can add the pasta and increase the heat to maintain the water boiling. Now, let’s stir, it’s better to use a wooden spoon when stirring and to do it a couple of times during the process. This is an important part of the pasta cooking process since the pasta needs to be emerged in the water in order not to stick to one another.

Based on the shape and quality of the pasta, the cooking time will be different. It’s normally written on the bag but the cooking time also depends on your individual taste too. If the pasta is not Pastificio dei Campi, I always try it some minutes before the time indicated on the bag in order to not have it over cooked. With the pasta from Gragnano, you can be sure that at that time the pasta will be “al dente”, which means not too hard but not overcooked… just perfect!

However you can break the pasta with a fork and try it before draining it, just in case. Never add cold water at the end: that removes the starch that helps hold the sauce.

Now the pasta is ready to be combined with the Italian sauce of your choice. There are, as you already know, some too choose from. My tip for the part is to continue to keep an eye on the blog and you will have lots of nice ideas for your favourite pasta sauce. For now, at least you know the secret for the perfect start.

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A classic italian sunday lunch.

Often on Sunday here in London the weather is not very good: gray, rainy, maybe not too cold but quite sad anyways.

This is a traditional Sunday dish in Italy, mainly because the ragu’ o bolognese sauce as you call it here, takes several hours to prepare, i.e. not something you prepare after a long day at work. It's normally made on Saturday and served together with pasta on Sundays. But there are also those who starts preparing it on Saturdays and finish it off on Sundays right before it’s served! In fact the truth is that the more the sauce will simmer on a low fire the better it will taste.  

The origin of this recipe seems to be in Bologna, but of course there are 2000 different recipes and variations also in each region. The only sure things about this dish are the main ingredients which will always be onion carrot, celery, tomatoes (fresh, passata or concentrate) olive oil and minced meat!

It's often served with fresh pasta, or long pasta types, but this time I wanted to try it with a short and wider type of pasta: I Paccheri! Being short and consistent all the sauce was incorporated by the pasta and each bite was a true explosion of Italian taste.



The result was exceptional, so here I will give you an easy recipe I use often, not too elaborated but truly italian. The ingredients for a good quantity are:

-        250gr beef minced meat,

-        250gr pork minced meat,

-        1 carrot,

-        1 onion,

-        1 celery

-        some extravirgin olive oil,

-        salt,

-        pepper,

-        a bit of nutmeg and  fresh parsley if you like

-        tomato sauce 800gr (I used 2 cans of passata)

-        2 glasses of red wine

Then of course Paccheri Pastificio dei Campi.

First cut the carrot, the celery and the onion in the smallest pieces you can, then put them in a sauce pan with some oil and let everything fry for a couple of minutes. When they are ready and more or less cooked, put the 2 types of meat in the saucepan and fry until the meat gets a bit of color. Add 2 glasses of red wine, mix and wait until the wine is evaporated.

Let the meat cook for a while and then add the tomato sauce. For this specific recipe I use the tomato passata with chopped tomatoes. Add some salt and pepper and then put the pan on low heat, the lowest there is. Stir the sauce every once in a while and add water when it becomes too dense. The sauce needs to simmer for at least one hour but remember the longer you leave it to simmer the better the result.

After an hour or so, taste and add salt, pepper or nutmeg if needed. Wait for the sauce to get dark and thick and after some hours on extremely low heat, the ragu’ will be ready and the taste will be absolutely different from any bolognese or ragu’ you have ever tried before.  
I hope you will enjoy this recipe and a truly Italian Sunday lunch.

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Loose Cannons will be shown on monday the 18th of October.

The London Film Festival has started also this year bringing on screen lots of international movies too. And one is particularly interesting for you, readers of this blog, because it’s very much related with … pasta.

I’m very pleased to announce the screening of a good bunch of Italian films in this edition:
 
DRAQUILA – ITALY TREMBLES by Sabina Guzzanti
LE QUATTRO VOLTE by Michelangelo Frammartino
OUR LIFE by Daniele Luchetti
DARK LOVE by Antonio Capuano
MALAVOGLIA (THE HOUSE BY THE MEDLAR TREE) by Pasquale Scimeca

But the one I was expecting the most is Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti) from the director Ferzan Ozpetek, one of my personal favorite.

The reason why I was especially expecting this movie is because, after a long time Ozpetek makes a welcome return to comedy and in Italy everyone said it was really nice and funny. On top of that the movie is set in a pasta-factory in Puglia during a family get-together and speaks about the still taboo subject of gayness in Italy. When the family business is to be handed over to one of the sons, the things don’t go exactly as expected.

“Director Ferzan Ozpetek (“Facing Windows,” “A Perfect Day”) takes a playful approach to this family dramedy, matching a critique of provincial Southern values with an eccentric cast of characters that includes a philandering conservative father, a boozing aunt, a pair of disgruntled maids, and Tommaso’s bubbly friends. As each family member’s quirks slowly come to the surface, Ozpetek’s heartfelt film reveals that Tommaso isn’t the only one struggling to navigate between la bella figura (a good public image) and his true desires." [Synopsis courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival]

So the story is not just interesting and entertaining, but it’s also exasperated by a very traditional environment: the Cantone family, pasta makers from generation and owners of a Pasta factory in the south of Italy.

It’s the same Ozpetek to admit at The Tribeca Festival how important the location was to him in shooting his film…

“Eight years ago I visited Lecce in Apulia for the first time and simply fell in love with it. There is a marvelous atmosphere in Lecce with the beauty of its architecture, the surrounding landscape and the excellent food, all of which chimed with the story. It is very rich in traditions, just like the family in the story, and the setting became almost an additional character.”

So here is another way to know and speak about pasta and this specific Mediterranean atmosphere that you can experience with this movie: you can almost smell the grain, touch the pasta just made and feel our tradition.

 
I hope you will enjoy this movie like it happened in America after the Tribeca Festival and if you don’t have the chance to come to London, from December it will be at the cinema nationwide.

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Some tips to recognize a really good pasta from the most common one.
 

After speaking about the recent English passion for food, and after the quick look at some tech tools that can help you in the kitchen, it's time I gave you some important related tips starting with some basic facts.

 

For an Italian dinner, pasta is your main ingredient and has to be chosen with care and attention: you will need to keep these tips in mind when you want to buy and eat the best pasta!

What really determines a good quality of pasta? Color, texture, smell, ingredients, origin and packaging. And I will explain why!

It all starts from the durum wheat. For Pasta dei Campi for example, it uses just italian grain, taken from an area of about 250 km around Gragnano. For the Pastificio it's very important that the grain has been cultivated in a place with historical tradition in a region like Puglia, Basilicata, Molise or Irpinia. This durum wheat has a protein content of around the 14%, compared to a normal value of about 10,5% found in classic production. It is also rare to find this type of pasta in Italy. This  amount of protein will give the consistency, taste and smell to the pasta.

 

The harvest happens just in the right moment of the maturation of the grain, the stocking follows straight away and it’s done in the same area for a perfect conservation of the prime product.
This will then be milled with care (with a low power machine) to maintain all it's original fragrance. The preparation of the mix is a delicate equilibrium between lots of components: the water temperature, semolina grain and the climate conditions. The pasta maker will coordinate them in a way to always reach the best mix possible.

Another very important factor is the bronze extraction. This material entering in contact with the pasta, will create that rough surface that will help the union with the sauce. But this has to be made in the right measure: not too rough and not too smooth.

Then there is the drying process that has to be slow and at a low temperature to maintain the fragrance. It is essential to complete all of this work and the work mentioned previously in the best way possible. This will give the pasta the right color, which should be yellowish and not amber or orange.

Finally there is the packing, completed by hand to avoid destroying the pasta. The combination of these methods should result in the highest quality pasta.

So next time you are in the supermarket, check where the pasta is made, what the ingredients are, if it looks a bit rough, and finally if the color is yellowish and not amber, dark or closer to orange.

Then if you will try Pastificio dei Campi, you will really understand the difference!

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From the center of Italy to your table in only 10 minutes.

Have you ever cooked pasta at home? Maybe yes, but what about pastaamatriciana? It's one of the most traditional dishes in Italy, especially in Rome: Amatrice in fact is a town really close to this amazing city . The recipe is very quick, simple but really tasty...
 
This sauce goes particularly well with a special type of pasta: bucatini. Do you know it? It's a long pasta, similar to spaghetti but it's thicker and  bigger and has an hole in the middle! This makes the pasta not too heavy, but still more consistent than a classic spaghetto. Normally this kind of pasta could be quite hard to find in London, but now with Pastificio dei Campi you can find it at Harvey Nichols or online at Food in the city. 

So if you are tired of  always cooking spaghetti with the same tomato sauce, than this is  certainly  the time for you to try this recipe...especially now with the arrive of the new shallots  in the supermarkets! A few simple products will give you a complete and delicious dish, and because it's so quick and easy, why don't invite some friends for dinner like i did last night?

Ingredients for 4 - 5 people:

 - 500 gr of  Bucatini Pastificio dei Campi

 - 2 small shallots

- 200 gr of guanciale, if you can't find this you can use pancetta
 
- 500 gr of tomato passata

- 80 gr of Pecorino romano

- extra virgin olive oil

- salt, pepper and a bit of chilli peppers

Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the guanciale or pancetta cut in little pieces. Then add the chopped shallots (tastier than a regular onion) and wait for them to cook a bit on a medium fire.

When the shallots become transparent, add the tomato passata, with some salt, pepper and the chilli peppers cut  in thin slices. In the meantime boil water with some salt  and when ready add the pasta and cook for around 6 minutes. While you are waiting for the passata and the rest to cook, grate some roman Pecorino cheese. This looks very similar to Parmesan cheese but it's saltier and has a stronger taste.

Check on the sauce. If it’s getting too dry, turn off the fire until the pasta is ready. Then drain the pasta, but keep some water on a side just in case. Add the pasta to the sauce and toss it whilst the pan is on the fire so the pasta will be able to absorb the great sauce and flavours.

Serve it on a plate with some grated pecorino on top and fresh grated black pepper if you like it. I hope you will enjoy the bucatini and this real roman recipe.

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Some i-tech tips to improve your cooking time

Thursday on the LondonDaily Telegraph, our Italian tourism minister asked Apple to remove an Iphone application that suggests Italy is the home of "pizza, mafia, pasta and scooters". She said “I cannot allow our country to be discredited by a criminal organization".
Thinking about this Iphone app and the increasing number of them on the app store I started to look at the most famous food related ones. What a discovery: there are plenty and very useful ones for all of you who likes to learn more about Italian cuisine and products.

Let's begin by two amazing one discovered on Mashable: TopChef Recipe Finder and CookBook. The first one will help you to find recipes with your grocery shopping, season fruits and vegetables. The second instead will let you input ingredients and will suggest you some recipes that you can make using them.

Now there are special italian ones... So if you want to become a real Italian chef and know what we really eat in Italy those are perfect.
You can’t miss the app. Eataly - The Recipes: Eataly, the biggest market for quality food in the world has selected 1,000 best recipes inns throughout Italy reported by Slow Food. Moreover, thanks to the "Wheel of the Seasons" you will have the possibility to know fruits and vegetables by month & season.

And Gambero Rosso created an Iphone guide to Italian restaurants and 2010 wines... It will helps to prepare your "dolce vita" holidays and weekend or  to choose the best Barolo or Chianti of this year, to impress your hosts.

There are also Ipad applications, for those of you who have one.

In fact if you want to cook and you have an Ipad, this can be a really great support. Try one of the best app for Italian recipes, the Artusi HD app: 222 recipes coming from the traditional and real Italian tradition. You can search for recipes and when you find the one you like, quickly add it to your “Favorites” for quick access afterwards. Moreover, if there’s something worth sharing, that can be done just as easily via email.

That's not it... if you have a weekend planned in Milan, you can’t miss to have a meal in "Il Marchesino", restaurant of the Teatro la Scala. Here the same Guglielmo Marchesi, very famous Italian chef with historical fame, suggested to use the Ipad to make the menu more clear. Since September this is reality and the menu’ look stunning!

What about the Blackberry owners? Don’t worry there are some nice app. also for you! With iFood Assistant LITE powered by Kraft, you get fun, convenience and delicious inspiration, all for free. With Healthy Recipes instead, you can browse and search almost 200,000 recipes, plus save your favorites. It also provide calories, carbs, and more for each recipe. Perfect for anyone on a diet!

Do you use any application to cook or have inspiration ? Tell us your experiences about it. How do you use it ?

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From the harvest to the table and in your pasta

The plan for this weekend was to go to the Food Harvest Festival organized in the Southbank center over the weekend. That's was a nice occasion to know what are the most common seasonal products in England or if there were some totally new and interesting to try... Maybe with some pasta! Unfortunately, cause the weather the market has been cancelled, at least on Sunday so I couldn't buy anything for my dinner.

I decided instead going to the market near my house and to look for products from the English farmers. I saw some beautiful broccoli sprouts that I thought could have been great with some nice strong ingredients like anchovies and garlic... and I thought about one old recipe from the south of Italy. With some short pasta like the Pennoni, it could have been perfect.

 

Ingredients:  

- 150gr broccoli sprouts
 
- 200gr Pennoni Pastificio dei Campi
 
- 4 anchovies in olive oil
 
- one spoon extra virgin olive oil
 
- some rosemary
 
- 2 garlic cloves
 
- a big chili
 
- a spoon of fresh bread crumbs

- shaved Parmesan cheese or Pecorino Romano
 
Boil the sprouts until almost ready but still a bit hard. Put the garlic in a pan with the olive oil, then add the anchovies, the rosemary and chili all cut in little pieces. Let everything cook and at the end add the points of the broccoli sprouts drained form the water.

Use the water of the broccoli to cook the pasta and when ready, just  place it in the pan to make it absorb the sauce and get mix with the rest of the ingredients. Then add the spoon of bread crumbs (better if before you can toast it a bit in a clean pan) and mix again. Serve with some Parmesan or Pecorino romano cheese and the dish is ready.
 
The next market will take place in mid October and will be all about cheese and wine! Let's hope the weather will help us this time, but in the meantime let me know what do you think of this recipe!

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