In this installment
Pasta Dinner Recipe
Rustichella Spaghetti
Il Mongetto Original Tomato Sauce
Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese
Spanish Chocolate Dipped Figs
Pasta Dinner Recipe
Pasta night is the best! Boil, spoon, grate, enjoy!
- Bring 3 quarts of salted water to boil in a stock pot.
- Open spaghetti package and add noodles to boiling water (don’t break them!)
- Cook/boil for 10-12 minutes or when the noodles are to your liking.
- Before draining the pot of spaghetti, reserve a cup of pasta water in a measuring cup or similar vessel. You can add pasta water to your sauce to change its consistency.
- While the pasta is cooking, empty the contents of the tomato sauce jar into a small pot and simmer over low heat. If it starts to boil, turn off the heat.
- Grate Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese with a planer or box grater.
- Put pasta in a bowl, top with the warmed up sauce, garnish with Parmigiano-Reggiano and serve on plates or in bowls.
- Give everyone a chocolate dipped fig for dessert!
Rustichella Spaghetti
Rustichella was founded in 1924 by Gianluigi Peduzzi’s grandfather Gaetano Serviacomo. The Italian economy at the time was dire. The Italian wheat crop was not good and the prices were high, making it hard for the typical Abruzzese to afford and 95% of all the pasta consumed in the country was made at home.
“When my grandfather started,” Gianluigi said, “in each city was a pasta factory. What my grandfather made was a luxury product and was mainly purchased and consumed on Sundays or during the holy days.” Gianluigi continued. “And the wheat was terrible. Only soft wheat was available, not the hard durum semolina we exclusively use today.”
Sometime in the years after WWII – over three decades after Gaetano got going – things were looking up. But while pasta production overall was booming, it wasn’t a great time for small artisan producers. As in so much of the Western world, agro- industry was taking over. By 1996 – just a few years after the first shipments of artisan pasta in the brown bag arrived in America – Rustichella was one of only 150 or so still out there.
Today, the rise of artisan food in America has reinvigorated high quality pasta production not only in Italy, but here in the states as well. But to my mind,
Rustichella is one of the best pastas made anywhere in the world so when they develop something new like egg pasta, I get excited about it.
They use the same semolina wheat that sets all their pastas apart, and mix in roughly seven eggs per kilo of semolina. The noodles are bright yellow as a result and make for a firm, toothsome noodle that tastes nutty, toasty, delicious.
Il Mongetto Tomato Sauce
For years Il Mongetto has been the top contender for my favorite bottled pasta sauce. They have a clean, fresh flavor that I love. Conjured up by the serenely insightful Santopietro family in the shadows of the Italian Alps, these sauces are filled with tomatoes, shallots, celery, carrots, olive oil from Umbrian maker Alfredo Mancianti and salt—and complex, compelling flavors that other sauces only aspire to. Keep some around for that night you don’t want to cook. Pasta with Il Mongetto sauce is the best fast food I know and I love this original Tomato Sauce best. Made with vine ripened tomatoes, carrot, celery, onion, herbs and a generous amount of great Umbrian extra-virgin olive oil. My favorite starting sauce. You can jazz it up any way you’d like by adding extra, maybe seasonal ingredients.
Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese
Giorgio Cravero’s fifth-generation firm in Bra, Italy, has been selecting and aging Parmigiano Reggiano since 1855. They focus on aging wheels that are sweet and light, with a cherry-like lusciousness that prompts you to reach for another piece just about the time you finish the first.
In America many cheese shops buy extra-aged, drier Parmigiano, pre-cut and wrap it and then tell customers to grate it on pasta. Don’t get me wrong. It’s usually good that way. But if it’s all you’ve ever tried then you’ve been missing out.
This is Parmigiano as an exemplary eating cheese. We cut each piece to order. Enjoy it at the table before or after dinner before you try it on dinner.
Chocolate Dipped Figs
These once unheard of figs have become so popular that we often have trouble keeping them in stock. They’re so good it makes me wonder why they didn’t become popular sooner.
Tender, sweeter than usual Calabacita figs are sun dried, filled with soft chocolate truffle cream and a hint of liqueur, then dipped in dark chocolate. They’re as good as they sound, perhaps better, and beat your mall-bought chocolates any day.
The figs themselves are luscious, rich, and full-bodied with a gentle sweetness. Their scent has just a hint of the liqueur in the filling. The flavor it imparts is subtle, though it adds another layer of richness without being noticeably alcoholic. The outer layer of chocolate is soft and also very deep, and collaborates deliciously with the fruit. Together, the flavors and textures of these figs are succulent and lush.