Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [79]
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
3 tablespoons freshly grated romano cheese
3 tablespoons fresh ricotta
8 to 10 fresh basil leaves
1 to 1½ pounds pasta
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for the table
Recommended pasta I love this sauce with ruote di carro, “cartwheels,” and it is also good with fusilli or rigatoni. Nor can you go wrong with plain old spaghetti.
1. Cut off the eggplant’s green spiky cap. Peel the eggplant and cut it into 1½-inch cubes. Put the cubes into a pasta colander set over a basin or large bowl, and sprinkle them liberally with salt. Let the eggplant steep for about 1 hour so that the salt can draw off most of its bitter juices.
2. Scoop up a few of the eggplant cubes and rinse them in cold running water. Wrap them in a dry cloth towel, and twist it to squeeze as much moisture as possible out of them. Spread them out on another clean, dry towel, and proceed thus until you have rinsed all the eggplant cubes.
3. Put enough vegetable oil in a large frying pan to come ½ inch up the sides of the pan, and turn on the heat to medium high. When the oil is quite hot, slip in as many of the eggplant pieces at one time as will fit loosely in the pan. If you can’t fit them all in at one time, fry them in two or more batches. As soon as the eggplant feels tender when prodded with a fork, transfer it with a slotted spoon or spatula to a cooling rack or to a platter lined with paper towels to drain.
4. Pour off the oil and wipe the pan clean with paper towels. Put in the olive oil and the sliced onion and turn on the heat to medium high. Sauté the onion until it becomes colored a light gold, then add the chopped garlic and cook for only a few seconds, stirring as you cook.
5. Add the strips of tomato, turn up the heat to high, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the oil floats free from the tomato.
6. Add the eggplant and a few grindings of pepper, stir, and turn the heat down to medium. Cook for just a minute or two more, stirring once or twice. Taste and correct for salt.
7. Toss the cooked and drained pasta with the eggplant sauce, add the grated romano, the ricotta, and the basil leaves. Toss again, mixing all ingredients thoroughly into the hot pasta, and serve at once, with the grated Parmesan on the side.
Spinach Sauce with Ricotta and Ham
For 4 to 6 servings
2 pounds fresh spinach OR 2 ten-ounce packages frozen leaf spinach, thawed
¼ pound butter
2 ounces unsmoked boiled ham, chopped
Salt
Whole nutmeg
½ cup fresh ricotta
½ cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese, plus additional cheese at the table
1 to 1 ½ pounds pasta
Recommended pasta Ridged penne, maccheroncini, or rigatoni.
1. If using fresh spinach: Pull the leaves from the stems, and discard the stems. Soak, rinse, and cook the spinach and gently squeeze the moisture from it. Chop it rather fine and set aside.
If using thawed frozen spinach: With your hands, squeeze the moisture from it, chop it fine, and set aside.
2. Put half the butter in a sauté pan and turn on the heat to medium high. When the butter foam begins to subside, add the ham, turn it two or three times, then add the spinach and liberal pinches of salt. Bear in mind that aside from the ricotta, which has no salt, the spinach is the principal component of the sauce and must be adequately seasoned. Sauté the spinach over lively heat, turning it frequently, for about 2 minutes.
3. Off heat, mix in the nutmeg, grated—no more than ⅛ teaspoon.
4. Toss the cooked and drained pasta with the contents of the pan, plus the ricotta, the remaining butter, and the ½ cup grated Parmesan. Serve at once, with grated Parmesan on the side.
Peas, Bacon, and Ricotta Sauce
IN MOST of Italy, bacon is not used as commonly in cooking as its spicier, unsmoked version, pancetta, except for the northeast of the country, where it prevails. In the same territory, the ricotta is very mild, the fresh peas from the farm islands of the Venetian lagoon are very sweet, and the