Bucatini con Melanzane Spappolate -- Pasta in Chunky Eggplant Sauce

Our My Kitchen My World destination for the month of September is Italy and we are focusing on regional Italian cuisine.  I adore Italian foods and love learning more about the different regions of countries everywhere so I was very excited to give this a go.  I have a few regional Italian cookbooks and used the book, Rustico -- Regional Italian Country Cooking for this cooking quest. One recipe that immediately caught my eye was Bucatini con Melanzane Spappolate from the region of Calabria, right at the toe bottom of the boot of Italy...

I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand, including two lovely eggplants that my mom brought over from her garden. This was the first time I've ever had an eggplant sauce like this, with the eggplant essentially  mashed up -- spappolate is derived from spappolare which means to crush, mash, or pulp in Italian. This ended up being a delicious lunch that I wouldn't hesitate to make again, I think the sauce would be delicious with any pasta and also wonderful with spaghetti squash, which I plan to make it with next time.

Bucatini con Melanzane Spappolate 
Bucatini in Chunky Eggplant Sauce
adapted from Rustico -- Regional Italian Country Cooking by Micol Negrin

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped (I used roasted garlic cloves, smashed)
3/4 pounds eggplant, peel on, cut into 1/4 x 1/4 x 3-inch strips
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced (I used 1 pound of canned imported San Marzano tomatoes, and forgot to chop them, just ended up mashing them in a potato masher)
1 teaspoon minced oregano
12 basil leaves, torn
1 pound bucatini (long hollow spaghetti type noodles, also called perciatelli from what I've read)
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese


Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch saute pan over a medium flame. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds, then add the eggplant, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the pepper.

Cook, stirring often, for 25 minutes, or until soft.

Crush the eggplant with a fork into a coarse puree while it is still in the pan, then add the tomatoes and oregano and cook 5 minutes more.

Stir in the basil and keep the sauce warm.

Meanwhile, bring 5 quarts of water to a boil. Add the bucatini and the remaining 2 tablespoons of salt and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. (Side note -- my pasta box said cooking time was 11 minutes for al dente, so be sure to taste test the pasta before you drain, you do not want it underdone, mine had to cook for about 12 minutes and was still plenty al dente!)  Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water.

Toss the bucatini and sauce in a bowl.

Dilute with enough of the reserved cooking water to coat the bucatini and serve hot, dusted with the Pecorino.

If you are an eggplant / tomato / pasta fan, I bet you would enjoy this southern Italian dish too! Can't wait to browse through my cookbooks and try some more regional Italian cuisine!

Fried Noodle Cake with Hoisin Vegetables -- Random Recipe #8

Doesn't this look yummy?  I really lucked out with this week's Random Recipe!  My randomly selected cookbook was Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks #198, Stir-Fries Cookbook from August 1997. 

I've had this book for many years and have never cooked anything from it.  My randomly selected recipe was...

Twice-Cooked Noodles with Hoisin Pork.  Since I don't eat pork I swapped out the pork and added extra veggies (the same amount of veggies by weight as was called for with the pork).  The recipe also includes "purchased stir fry sauce" and I made my own.  I grew up eating stir fries all the time and I don't remember ever buying a sauce. This one called for garlic ginger stir-fry sauce, so here is a quick and easy home made version, you can just up the ingredients if you want a bigger batch of sauce and vary the spices to taste, I usually add some Chinese Five Spice powder but kept this one simple since it was to go with the hoisin sauce...

Quick and Easy Homemade Stir Fry Sauce

double if desired, this makes enough for one small stir-fry

1/2 cup vegetable broth

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (or minced garlic)

1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger (or minced fresh ginger)

1 tbsp cornstarch

Whisk together all ingredients thoroughly, add to cooked vegetables in hot wok and stir for 30 sec - 1 minute until thickened and glossy. To use it in this recipe just whisk it all together and add it in when the recipe says to add stir fry sauce to the wok.

Twice-Cooked Noodles with Hoisin Vegetables

adapted from Pillsbury Stir-Fries Cookbook

8 ounces uncooked fresh Chinese noodles or angel hair pasta, broken into 2 inch pieces (I used a 10 ounce package of lo-mein noodles)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

3 tablespoons peanut oil (I used vegetable oil)

1 and 1/4 pounds mixed fresh vegetables, cut into like sized pieces -- I used 1 red pepper, about 6 mushrooms, about a cup of broccoli florets, and 1 small zucchini

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup stir fry sauce (see recipe above)

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

Cook noodles as directed on package. Drain well. In large bowl, combine cooked noodles, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the peanut or vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet or work over medium0high heat until hot.

Add noodle mixture, pressing to form pancake, cook 8 to 12 minutes or until bottom of noodle pancake is

golden brown.

Slide pancake from skillet onto plate (this is a little tricky); invert pancake onto another plate, browned side up. Add another 1 tablespoon oil into skillet or wok. Slide the noodle pancake into skillet, browned side up; cook 4 to 6 minutes or until bottom is browned. Slide onto serving plate, cover to keep warm.

In same skillet or work, heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil until hot, add veggies and stir to coat.

 Add water and cook 6 to 8 minutes until veggies are crisp tender,stirring occasionally. Stir in stir fry sauce and hoisin sauce. Cook 1 to 2 minutes until thoroughly heated and sauce has thickened and is glossy.

To serve, with sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut hot noodle pancake into wedges. Top pancake with vegetable mixture.

~~~~~

This was probably my favorite Random Recipe so far! It was such a delicious lunch even though it was a bit tricky to get the noodle pancake just right. One of my very favorite things at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants is called Pan Fried Golden Noodle and it is pretty much this recipe! It is not on a lot of Chinese restaurant menus and I'd never tried to make it at home because I never thought I'd be able to find the right type of noodle but the lo mein noodles I tried were very similar to the restaurant noodles.  I will be making this one again for sure, some crunchy tofu would be perfect with this.  Although it is a bit time consuming for lunch, it was worth it :)

I'm sending this off to Sue for Cookbook Sundays and also to Ruth at Once Upon a Feast for Presto Pasta Nights #258.

Ziti al Forno -- Random Recipe #7

Okay guys, time for another Random Recipe! This week's random cookbook was A World of Pasta. I haven't had this book very long, a year or so, I bought it used from amazon one day while I was looking for a different cookbook. It just looked like an interesting book, I love the older recipes in cookbooks that may have been forgotten over the years. This book was originally published in 1978 but I have the 1985 version. I hadn't had a chance to try a recipe from this book yet so this is my first one.



My random recipe this week was Ziti al Forno made with Filetto Sauce, I had never heard of filetto sauce before and wondered what filetto sauce even was, so was pleasantly surprised to find it was similar to a marinara sauce. In the Filetto Sauce recipe preface it says...This is a special light sauce that restauranteurs in Italy make on Sundays and serve to themselves and their staffs on fresh pasta that day. It is a special sauce for us, too, to which we often add other igredients when we wish to vary it. It freezes well, thus we usually make up a big batch. Its creators use proscuitto fat to saute the onions and garlic, but we've found that olive oil does the job nicely.


Filetto Sauce

4 tablespoons of olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minves
4 large onions, finely chopped (I used onion powder)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons dry oregano
2 tablespoons dry basil
1/8 teaspoon of hot red-pepper flakes
3 pounds of very rupe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or 2 two pound cans of Italian plum tomatoes (with basil), run through a food mill (I skipped the food mill)
1/2 teaspoon of sugar

In a pot, heat the oil, and saute the garlic until soft. Add the onions and cook until soft. Stir in the salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and red-pepper flakes, blending well. Add the tomatoes and sugar, stirring them into the other ingredients until well mixed. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook, oncovered, for about 35 minutes, stirring often. The appeal of this sauce is its lightness, so do not overcook. When you can move a wooden spoon across the top of the sauce without leaving a watery trail, it is ready. It should be smooth and thick but not heavy. Do not revert to other pasta sauce techniques and use either tomato paste of the "crushed tomatoes" that come in a can. This destroys the personality of Filetto Sauce.


Ziti al Forno
adapted from A World of Pasta -- Maris Luisa Scott and Jack Denton Scott
Italy -- This is the Italian pasta lover's favorite. Al forno simply means in the oven, baked.

1 pound of ziti (a large, long pasta tube), in 1 inch pieces, cooked very al dente, drained
3 tablespoons of butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon of black pepper (I left this off since I didn't want this too peppery for the kids and there is already pepper in the filetto sauce)
1/2 cup grated Asiago or Parmesan cheese (I used Asiago and upped it to 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese (I upped this to 3/4 cup also)
1 pound of fresh ricotto cheese, about 1 and 1/2 cups
2 cups of Filetto Sauce (I upped this to 3 cups since it seemed pretty dry with only 2 -- you could probably use any tomato based pasta sauce here)


In a bowl place the ziti, butter, and pepper; toss well. Add half of the asiago and romano; toss well.

In a baking dish (I used a 9 by 13 pyrex) make a layer of pasta, sprinkle with asiago and romano, add a layer of ricotta...

cover with sauce. Repeat the procedure until the pasta, cheeses, and sauce are used; the lasy layer should be sauce and grated cheese.

Cook, uncovered, in a preheated 375 degree oven until bubbling and browned. (This took about 30 minutes for me.)

~~~

This was a very yummy basic baked ziti. I really liked it but I am a baked ziti fan. My youngest loved the sauce and all three kids ate their plates of ziti, although I did hear some whining about not liking the ricotta cheese. I thought the bites of ricotta were one of the best parts but I love ricotta. Picky husband had a few bites but he does not like pasta without meat (except for homemade macaroni and cheese) so he wasn't really a fan. Oh-well. I think that most people would like this recipe.

I do have a favorite baked ziti recipe that is super cheesey, with provolone, mozzarella (actually this was the first ziti I've tried that didn't have mozzarella), and more. I usually make it for get togethers at our house and serve it along side picky husband's favorite meat lasagna so people can have a meatless option. This recipe won't be replacing my old one, but I thought it was great and the leftovers reheated perfectly and made a nice lunch the next day. I enjoyed learning about Filetto sauce and would make this recipe again :)

Angel Hair Pasta with Zucchini, Mint, and Feta

I made this dish last October, which I'm sure is obvious with the pumpkin tablecloth and such. I didn't get around to posting it then and this week, over at I Heart Cooking Clubs the theme of the week is Go Green! -- so I figured this fit the bill. I love zucchini, feta, and pasta, and the mint was an intriguing addition, so I had to give this dish from Tessa Kiros' book, Apples for Jam, a try. Plus, how could I not when I had some fresh mint growing in my herb garden?

This is my herb picker, my sweet little four year old who is the only one home with me during the day this year, sniffle, sniffle. Hard to believe next year he will be in kindergarten and I will not have a little baking buddy :( Looks like we'll have to have cooking together time after school.

Looking at these just makes me smile. He is such a silly guy.

Tongue out for maximum mint picking concentration :) Okay, enough kid pictures, on to the recipe...

Angel Hair Pasta with Zucchini, Mint, and Feta

adapted from Tessa Kiros -- Apples for Jam

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 small zucchini, finely sliced, I doubled this to 4 and sliced them about 1/2 inch thick

2 cloves garlic, peeled and squashed a bit

salt

1/2 teaspoon dried mint, I used fresh -- about 20 leaves, chopped

3/4 cup feta cheese, I upped this to 1 cup

1 and 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

2/3 of 16 ounce package angel hair pasta / capellini -- I used the whole box since I upped the veggies and cheese

olive oil, to serve

grated parmesan cheese, to serve

Heat the olive oil in a large nonstick frying pan and add the zucchini and garlic.

Saute over quite high heat until the zucchini are cooked through and golden in places. If the garlic starts to burn, sit it on top of the zucchini.

Season very lightly with salt and remove from the heat. Toss in the mint, crushing it between your fingers, and add the feta and lemon juice to the pan.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling salted water, following the package instructions. Drain the pasta, not too thoroughly, and save a little cooking water. (I'd say about 1/2 cup) Toss the pasta directly into the zucchini pan, if it fits. If not, return it to its own pan and add the zucchini sauce.

Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil and toss quickly and thoroughly to mix it all through (add a little cooking water if it seems at all dry). Serve immediately with parmesan and an extra drizzle of olive oil, if you like.

~~~

This was a nice simple lunch for my four year old and myself. It was very mildly flavored so if you like the flavors of zucchini and feta, you would probably like this. I remember having leftovers of this and they reheated fine in the microwave. Not a knock you down with flavor type of pasta, but it had a nice light and refreshing taste from the lemon juice and mint and was a yummy lunch for sure.

Red Lentil Soup With Pasta -- Random Recipe #5

Even though this soup is not the prettiest soup out there, it sure was a delicious lunch! Lentil Soup with Pasta was my 5th Random Recipe. I was excited when I randomly picked this book...

from my bookshelf; Williams Sonoma Food Made Fast: Pasta. This book came out in 2006 so I've had it for a while but never cooked anything from it before. I'm a sucker for pasta cookbooks since I'm such a pasta fan and I find them hard to resist purchasing. After I picked this book for Random Recipe #5 I was hoping to get a nice creamy comforting pasta dish, or maybe something with a fresh tasting veggie sauce, like what is pictured on the cover.

No such luck, my random recipe was Lentil Soup with Pasta...honestly the photo in the book doesn't look appetizing to me, and I think mine looks worse than that one, oh-well. It didn't sound bad or anything, I enjoy lentil soup, it just wasn't reaching out to the pasta lover in me, and after picking a pasta cookbook I was really in a pasta mood. I did make a couple of small changes to the recipe, leaving out the pancetta, adding extra carrots and celery, and swapping brown lentils for red lentils, noted below.

Lentil Soup with Pasta

adapted from Williams Sonoma Food Made Fast: Pasta
15 minutes hands-on time, serves 4 (I think it serves more like 6)

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 oz pancetta or bacon (I left this off)
Yellow onion, 1 small, chopped (I left this off and added 1 tsp of onion powder)
Garlic, 2 large cloves, minced
Carrot, 1 finely chopped (I used 2)
Celery, 1 stalk, finely chopped (I used 2)
Fresh sage, 1 tablespoon, minced (I used about 1/2 teaspoon dried sage)
Lentils, 2 cups (I used red, color is not specified but in the photo they are brown lentils)
Canned whole plum (Roma) tomatoes, 1 cup, chopped, with juice (I used the whole 14 ounce can)
Chicken Broth, 6 cups, plus more if needed (I used vegetarian vegetable broth, and about 2 extra cups)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Tubettini, ditalini, or other small soup pasta, 1/4 pound

1. Make the soup base. In a large pot over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Add the pancetta and saute until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, celery, and sauce and saute until the vegetables are softened, about 3 minutes.

2. Cook the lentils. Stir in the lentils and tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Raise the heat to high, add the broth, and bring to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon salt (I used 1 teaspoon), reduce the heat the medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, until the lentils are nearly tender, 30-40 minutes. Add more broth if the soup starts to dry out. (Okay, I have to note that the red lentils do cook quicker than brown, so they will be over done if you cook them for 30 minutes, mine were over done, I completely forgot they cook quicker. Not a big deal, they were still tasty, but they had broken down a bunch by the time the soup was ready to eat and the pasta was cooked.)

3. Cook the pasta. Add the pasta to the lentils. Cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until the pasta is not quite al dente, about 2 minutes less than the package directions. The pasta will continue to cook in the heat of the soup. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve.

~~~

I made this for a weekend lunch and it was a huge hit with myself and all three finicky kids. It smelled delicious while cooking and was a perfect warm and hearty stick-to-your-ribs kind of soup for a cold winter day. Picky husband said it was "consumable" but did not love it or anything like the kids and I did, not sure why. It went perfectly with some homemade bread with butter on the side. The kids were requesting second helpings and claiming leftovers, which almost never happens, so I'd say this is a kid friendly recipe for sure.

I would make it again, knowing that I would have to add more broth or water (a few cups worth at least) and also cook the lentils for a shorter time if I used red ones again. I was happy to use some of my imported Italian tubettini as the pasta, my daughter just loves the name of that pasta so it was a novelty to her since she'd been wanting to use it ever since I bought it a few months ago. Next time I think I would cook the pasta separately and just add it to the bowls before serving, but this way worked fine too. Even though this soup was not going to win any contests for looks, it had a great flavor and if something can have all my kids requesting leftovers, I think it's a winner. It was nice to try a recipe I probably would have never picked to cook if it hadn't been my Random Recipe :)

Fresh Pasta with Piri Piri Pepper Cream Sauce

The theme of the week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Some Like it Hot - And Spicy! We are cooking recipes from author Tessa Kiros and now that I have added all of her books to my cookbook collection, I should have no problem picking a recipe, right? Well, maybe I wasn't looking hard enough but I did have some trouble finding a spicy recipe that was veg friendly.


Finally I decided I'd go with something based on one of Tessa's recipe for Piri Piri Sauce from her book Piri Piri Starfish, the first book of Tessa's that I purchased when we started cooking her recipes months ago. I had no idea what a Piri Piri was, was it some sort of Portugese Starfish? Well, no. Piri Piri is a small hot pepper that is popular in Portuguese cuisine.

I knew I'd never be able to find such an ingredient locally, so I went to amazon and found some jarred piri piri peppers for sale, they were about $25 and you got 12 small jars of peppers. I love trying new things and I figured I would be able to use them for the piri piri sauce and have a ton left to add into other recipes and possibly substitute these in for those canned diced green chilies that are in lots of Mexican inspired recipes.

Here is the recipe I used as a base for the cream sauce...

Tomato Piri Piri Sauce

Tessa Kiros -- Piri Piri Starfish

1 cup olive oil

3 ripe tomatoes, about 3 and 1/2 ounces each, sliced (I used 4 smaller Roma tomatoes = about 11 ounces)

1 and 3/4 ounces of butter (about 3 tbsp)

generous 1/2 teaspoon salt

large pinch of sugar

6 dried piri piri chillies, or to taste, finely chopped (I used 6 jarred peppers in place of dried)

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Recipe preface notes that this is especially good with grilled bread or over white rice, which is where I got the idea to use it as a pasta sauce base.

Heat the oil in a smallish heavy-based pan. Add the tomatoes and butter and simmer for about 25 minutes. Add the salt, sugar, piri piris and garlic and cook for another 5-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and puree roughly with a hand-held blender or food processor. If you like your sauce hotter at a pinch or so of ground piri piri.

Above photo is the sauce right when I added the peppers and garlic, before they had a chance to cook into the sauce, and below is a photo of the sauce after it had been pureed with the immersion blender.

Pour sauce into a sterilised jar, if you're not using immediately, and keep the surface covered with a layer of oil. Keep in the fridge and warm up or bring to room temperature to serve. This will keep for up to a month. Makes about 1 and 3/4 cups.

~~~

Part 2

I decided to use another Tessa Kiros recipe for the fresh pasta, I made the pasta in my lello pasta machine and used the linguine extrusion disc. The recipe preface says this can be made by hand or in a food processor. I'm just posting the ingredients so you can mix it and cut it however you prefer.

Fresh Egg Pasta -- Pasta all'uovo
Tessa Kiros -- Twelve

1 lb strong flour -- I just used all purpose, not sure if that was strong or not

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

To cook the pasta use 1 tbsp of salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil in the water to prevent it from sticking together and cook in boiling water for 3-4 minutes, depending on shape and thickness of pasta.

Pasta before and after cooking, and ready to be plated by Fred the Pastasaurus :) Had to throw a pic of Fred up here, I bought him a year or so ago and the kids just love him, how can you not smile when a dinosaur is serving your pasta?


Part 3

Okay here is the Piri Piri Cream Sauce part, that I made up for this IHCC theme...

1 cup Piri Piri Tomato Sauce (recipe mention previously)

1/4 cup cream

1/4 cup shredded Parmigano Reggiano*

1/4 cup shredded Grana Padano cheese*

*(or just use 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan)

Gently heat the sauce and cream in a small sauce pan, add the cheese and whisk until smooth and creamy.

You can add a touch more cream if it is too thick, but I did not need to.

Serve over pasta...

with extra parmesan.

And there you have it. It really wasn't too spicy but it did have a little heat to it. The unique flavor of the piri piri was right there and it definitely took over the dish, but not in a bad way. I would probably recommend this as a side dish rather than a main dish pasta, because the flavor is kind of intense. My four year old, who usually loves spicy food, took one bite and was not interested. Oh-well. I think it was a nice introduction to piri piri peppers for me and can't wait to try them in some other recipes.

I'm sending this off to Ruth at Presto Pasta Nights for Presto Pasta Nights #249 -- thanks, Ruth!