Pasta

This recipe is for a simple filling that works equally well as a stuffing for cannelloni or squash blossoms. The stuffed blossoms can be poached or baked.

The difference between good lasagna and divine lasagna is making it with silky, fresh pasta.

Any variety or combination of summer squash will do for this recipe. Use more than one color for a more vibrant dish.

This pasta works well with little clams in their shells or with large clams steamed open, removed from their shells, and chopped.

The trick to saucing pasta with pesto is to loosen the noodles with hot pasta water. It makes all the difference.

I love the flavors of spicy garlicky sausage together with nutty greens such as broccoli rabe. Besides fusilli noodles, penne rigate, orecchiette, or any other large toothy pasta shape is good for this sauce.

The wide, hand-cut fresh egg noodles called pappardelle are classically sauced with ragùs and hearty sauces like this one.

Italy’s national dish, pasta e fagioli, is easy to make and is a wonderful way to serve fresh shell beans (see page 76). Most any kind of fresh shell bean will do, but cranberry and cannellini beans are traditional choices.

This soup is what I want to eat when I’m feeling under the weather. It is light, clean, and full of flavor.

Fresh pasta, at least the version I make most often, is nothing more than flour and eggs. The prospect of making pasta may seem intimidating, but I assure you, it is surprisingly easy. The most time-consuming part is rolling it out, but a hand-cranked machine makes this job quick and easy. (Thrift stores and yard sales are great places to look for pasta machines.) The main ingredient of pasta is flour. The flour I use most often is unbleached, organic, and all-purpose. (Bleached flour, besides having added chemicals, has very little flavor and makes a sticky dough.) For different flavors and textures, whole-grain flours such as whole wheat, buckwheat, farro, and others can be substituted for up to half the amount of flour; more than that and the dough becomes friable or crumbly and can’t be rolled as thin as needed for some recipes. Durum flour makes great pasta with a good bite but unfortunately it is hard to find; if you do come across it, substitute it for up to half of the total flour. Semolina is ground from durum wheat, but it is very coarse and hard to turn into egg pasta. Experiment to see what your favorite flours and ratios are. To make the dough by hand, measure the flour into a bowl, one that easily holds the flour with plenty of extra room for stirring. Break the eggs into another bowl or cup and beat them slightly to mix the yolks and whites. Make a well in the flour (use a spoon or your hand to make a depression) and pour in the beaten eggs. Use a fork to stir as though scrambling the eggs, scraping in flour from the sides bit by bit. When the egg and flour mixture gets too stiff to stir with a fork, continue mixing with your hands. When the flour is mostly absorbed, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly until the dough comes together. It won’t be perfectly smooth. Wrap it in a plastic bag or plastic wrap and let sit for an hour at room temperature (or longer, refrigerated). The dough needs to rest to allow the gluten that has been activated by the stirring and kneading to relax, making the dough easier to roll out. To make the dough with a stand mixer, put the flour in the bowl, attach the paddle, and slowly pour in the eggs while mixing at low speed. Mix until the dough begins to come together in small, moist clumps. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead together. Cover and let rest as above. Through trial and error I have discovered that a wetter dough is much easier to work with, especially when rolling out by hand (it does not spring back as quickly as a dry dough). The ideal texture for pasta is a dough that comes together easily but is not sticky. If, after mixing, the dough is crumbly and dry, moisten with a sprinkling of water. Add more as needed, a little at a time, but avoid making it too wet. If the dough is too wet and sticky, you can knead in more flour, but let it rest at least an hour to come together. Flour will vary from batch to batch, so what seemed like the perfect amount of liquid one time may be too much or too little another. Pasta can be rolled by hand or with a machine. The rollers of the machine create perfectly smooth noodles, while hand-rolling results in interesting surface irregularities for the sauce to cling to, adding nuance and flavor. It’s worth rolling the dough by hand once to taste and feel the difference. When rolling pasta with a machine, first flatten the ball of dough with your hands, then open the machine up to its fullest setting, and, while cranking slowly but steadily, pass the dough through the rollers of the machine. (If you are making a large amount of dough, divide it into smaller balls to avoid overloading the machine.) Fold the rolled dough over itself into thirds, as though folding a letter, and put it through the machine again. This process kneads the dough. If the dough is sticking, sprinkle it lightly with flour. Smooth out the flour with your hand before rolling again. Fold and roll two more t...

Couscous, made from semolina, is a staple in North African cuisine. Here it is infused with spicy chiles and cinnamon in this easy-to-whip-up salad that would pair nicely with grilled lamb or poultry.

An Italian brunch wouldn’t be complete without a pasta dish. Campanelle pasta is named for the church bells it resembles, and the nooks and crannies are great for trapping sauce, making every bite delicious. If you can’t find campanelle, any small shaped pasta will do. There are lots of bold flavors in this pasta salad, the base of which is canned tuna. Although it’s definitely more caloric, tuna packed in olive oil rather than water gives the salad a much fuller, richer flavor.

Here’s a dish that is so much more than the sum of its parts, which are all simple pantry ingredients that you probably have on hand right now. Bread crumbs were traditionally a thrifty way for Italian housewives to use up leftover crusts of bread, but they really make the dish; sautéed in olive oil, the bread crumbs get crispy and make a crunchy crust on each strand of pasta. I use black and green olives to get both the fruity and the salty flavors, but if you have only one or the other the dish will still be great. It really doesn’t get much easier than this—or more appealing.

I don’t cook with jalapeño peppers often because I’m not a huge fan of spicy food, but when I was served grilled fish topped with a spicy pesto at a beach-side restaurant near San Diego, I loved the way the heat woke up the flavor of the fish. I thought it could do the same for pasta, and sure enough, it’s a great combo. Packed with spinach and arugula, this pesto is more condiment and less sauce than the typical basil pesto, and a bit lighter thanks to the substitution of walnuts for oily pine nuts. Fusilli is the perfect partner for any kind of pesto because the sauce gets trapped in the ridges so you get flavor in every bite. Serve leftovers of the dressed pasta with roasted chicken, fish, or beef.

The sauce for this pasta is really a simple fresh salsa, and if you are making it in the summer months, feel free to substitute two or three diced beefsteak tomatoes for the canned. It is just as good at room temperature as it is served hot, so it can be made ahead of time—perfect for large get-togethers and buffet-style parties. The sliced steak turns this dish into a meal. I’m seeing smoked almonds used more and more in Italy and I have fallen in love with the deep flavor they add; however, as they are quite salty, when I use them in a dish I reduce the amount of salt I would normally add.

Ponza is an island off the west coast of Italy where my aunt Raffy and I first tasted this dish, in the home of a family friend. Like all the best pasta dishes, this one is simple; what makes it special is how the sauce comes together. The tomatoes and capers are roasted with a bread crumb topping, concentrating their flavors and making them very juicy with a crunchy crust. When they’re mixed with the hot pasta and cheese, the textures and flavors explode in your mouth. This just might be my favorite recipe in the book!

Treviso is a leafy vegetable found all over northern Italy, especially around Venice. It looks like a cross between romaine lettuce and radicchio, whose burgundy color and slightly bitter flavor it shares. I like to wilt treviso and then add it to pasta with some creamy goat cheese to mellow its bitterness.