I tried, believe me: I tried. But I couldn’t find any other pasta recipe as quick as this… The cooking is kept to the bare necessities: 10 to 12 minutes. I mean: you can’t expect to eat raw hard spaghetti! Do you? So, no excuse: even the laziest of you, readers, can challenge themselves into […]
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Pasta with Spicy Nduja
Say “Nduja”, say Calabria What is Nduja? It’s a spicy hot, soft and spreadable salami: the most famous typical food of Calabria. It is made with very finely minced pork meat and fat, mixed with red chili peppers, salt and spices. The original Nduja is extremely hot, but less aggressive variations can be also found on […]

“Tuscany on a Gondola”: Pici in Salsa
When the fridge is empty… Facing an occasional “echoing-mode” fridge crisis can really set free all the creative energy we are gifted with… Mayo jar: scraped to the limits. Milk: just enough for staining the next morning coffee. Three anchovies swimming in their own oil. Two small sweet onions into the veggies tray. Could be […]

Amatriciana or Matriciana? The origins of a legend
What is it called? Amatriciana? or Matriciana? Well, this is another of those culinary-slash-etymological Italian domestic feuds that divide the country. And the closer you get to the Latium boundary lines the more oversensitive people are about this matter. So, how to behave when there’s no chance of guessing on which side of the barricade […]

Parma Ham, let’s talk about it… while we cook it with Bladder Campion
Ziti with Bladder Campion and Parma Ham You should already know Bladder Campion from one of my earliest posts and you can read how to blanch it for storing in this recipe. Here instead is my first proper recipe with Silene Vulgaris, whose sweet and delicate flavor, enhanced by a generous use of shallots and […]

Fusilli with Black Kale and Smoked Pancetta. Doesn’t it say “It’s Autumn!”?
Combining the strong flavours of cavolo nero, smoked pancetta and pecorino romano cheese. A couple of months ago I bought these giant fusilli, and I was waiting to find the perfect sauce for them. I knew it should have been something chunky and strong enough to deal with those mighty spirals and engulf them, but […]
Coming Soon…
This is going to be a work in progress post: I will update it each time I publish a new recipe. The next one will be “Bucatini a la Gricia”: a dish coming from the old shepherds’ tradition of Lazio, and apparently it is even older than the first tomatoes that set foot in Italy […]

Spaghetti “Aglio, olio e peperoncino”
“Garlic, oil and chili pepper” spaghetti
This is my very first post ever. And I couldn’t start with a better recipe than this: spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino. This is one of the simplest and most genuine italian dishes. It’s very cheap: ingredients are easy to buy in any supermarket, and they are usually always available in any italian kitchen. It’s […]