Рецепт Pasta e patate (Pasta and Potatoes)
To many people the idea of pairing pasta and potatoes comes as a shock. Carbs with carbs? And in these carb-phobic times, it’s not only unheard of, it sounds down right unhealthy. Well, healthy or not, this iconic Neapolitan dish in true cucina povera tradition was born out of the most extreme kind of frugality: typically you make it with leftover odds and ends of dried pasta, just a bit of tomato or tomato paste—the amount that you might also have leftover from making sauce—and the ultimate poor man’s vegetable, the potato. A tribute to the Italian belief that you should never food away. And to the Italian talent for making something delicious out of the humblest of ingredients.
Ingredients
Serves 4-6
250g (1/2 lb) pasta (see Notes)
500g (1 lb) yellow-fleshed boiling potatoes
100g (3-1/2 oz) pancetta, guanciale or lardo (see Notes)
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
A few sprigs of parsley, chopped
3-4 tomatoes, fresh or canned, roughly chopped
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
A parmesan rind (optional)
Parmesan or pecorino romano cheese, to taste
Directions
In a large pot, preferably made of terracotta or enameled cast iron, sauté the chopped cured pork in the olive oil until the fat is translucent and the edges are just beginning to brown. Add the chopped onion, celery and parsley to the pot and give it all a stir, then season lightly with salt and pepper. Sauté these aromatics—known in Italian as a soffritto—until the onion is quite soft and translucent. Add the tomato and let it simmer. If using the Parmesan rind, add it to the pot.
While the tomatoes are simmering, peel the potatoes and cut them into smallish cubes, adding the potato cubes to the pot as you go. When you’re done, give everything a good turn, add a ladleful of water to moisten things, and cover. Let the potato cubes simmer for 1o minutes or so, until they are almost tender. In a separate pot or kettle, bring some water to the simmer.
Add the pasta to the pot, along with enough simmering water to cover the pasta entirely. Season with a generous pinch of salt, stir and cover the pot again. Let the pasta simmer over a moderate flame, stirring from time to time to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pot, until done al dente. Ladle in more simmering water as needed to keep things loose and liquid.
When things are just about done, add nice handful or two of grated cheese, and taste and adjust for seasoning. Add another ladleful of simmering water to the pot if it needs it—your pasta and potatoes can be served quite soupy or dry, or somewhere in between, as you prefer.
Notes on Pasta and Potatoes
Pasta mista
Pasta e fagioli (Pasta and Beans) and pasta e ceci (Pasta and Chickpeas) and pasta con la zucca (Pasta and Winter Squash) are other typical Neapolitan dishes made with pasta mista. When making this kind of dish, you’ll need to cook until the hardest pasta is al dente, so this will probably mean some of the other pasta will already be quite soft, and some may even fall apart, but that’s OK. The different degrees of doneness actually adds some interest, if you ask me.
Also quite common for this and similar dishes is pasta spezzata, or ‘broken pasta': long pasta shapes like spaghetti or linguini, broken up by hand into short lengths. (Angelina always made her Pasta and Lentils with broken linguini.) Or you can use a stubby ‘soup pasta’ like ditali (the pasta par excellence for Pasta and Peas).
Like many iconic dishes, Pasta and Potatoes lends itself to many variations according to the cook. My Neapolitan cooking muse, Jeanne Caròla Francesconi, adds carrot to the soffritto, and uses a bit of tomato pasta diluted in water rather than whole tomatoes. For a vegetarian option, just omit the pork, and going in the opposite direction, you could use broth instead of water for more flavor. Like pasta and fagioli, you can make Pasta and Potatoes ahead, and it only seems to get better.
Pasta e patate (Pasta and Potatoes)
Ingredients
- 250g (1/2 lb) pasta
- 500g (1 lb) yellow-fleshed boiling potatoes
- 100g (3-1/2 oz) pancetta, guanciale or lardo
- 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 stalk of celery, chopped
- A few sprigs of parsley, chopped
- 3-4 tomatoes, fresh or canned, roughly chopped
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- A parmesan rind (optional)
- Parmesan or pecorino romano cheese, to taste
Instructions
In a large saucepan, preferably made of terracotta or enameled cast iron, sauté the chopped cured pork in the olive oil until the fat is translucent and the edges are just beginning to brown. Add the chopped onion, celery and parsley to the pot and give it all a stir, then season lightly with salt and pepper. Sauté the aromatics until the onion is quite soft and translucent. Add the tomato and let it simmer. If using the Parmesan rind, add it to the pot.
While the tomatoes are simmering, peel the potatoes and cut them into smallish cubes, adding the potato cubes to the pot as you go. When you're done, give everything a good turn, add a ladleful of water to moisten things, and cover. Let the potato cubes simmer for 1o minutes or so, until they are almost tender. In a separate pot or kettle, bring some water to the simmer.
Add the pasta to the pot, along with enough simmering water to cover the pasta entirely. Season with a generous pinch of salt, stir and cover the pot again. Let the pasta simmer over a moderate flame, stirring from time to time to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pot, until done al dente. Ladle in more simmering water as needed to keep things soupy.
When things are just about done, add nice handful of grated cheese, to taste, and taste and adjust for seasoning. Add another ladleful of simmering water to the pot if it needs it—your pasta and potatoes can be served quite soupy or dry, as you prefer.
0.1
http://memoriediangelina.com/2015/03/13/pasta-e-patate-pasta-and-potatoes/
Like Loading...
Related