Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers - Moosewood Collective [3]
The idea of simple suppers strikes a chord within us all. Despite being busier than ever in an increasingly complicated world, people still want to eat well. And even though we want you to come to our restaurant and let us cook for you, we also think it’s important to cook and eat at home. Cooking something good can make you feel good—and then eating something good and feeding the people you love can make you feel even better. We hope this cookbook will help make suppertime a welcome, peaceful time of your day.
Tomato Tortilla Soup, Bean & Cheese Quesadillas
Pasta with Olives Piquant
Often, pasta is what we think of first when we want to make a quick, simple supper. It provides a great canvas for improvisation, and fresh, tasty sauces and toppings can be made in the same time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta itself. Many pasta dishes are complete meals in themselves; others need little more than a green salad to round out the meal.
There is a multitude of shapes and sizes of pasta, and there is a certain logic in pairing sauces and toppings with particular shapes. In general, long strands such as spaghetti and linguine work well with tomato sauces and pestos. Bowl-shaped cuts such as orecchiette and shells are good to serve with chunky vegetable sauces because the pasta catches and holds the vegetable pieces. Flat noodles like fettuccine and farfalle go well with delicate cream and cheese sauces. That said, we would never let the lack of the perfect pasta shape stop us from going ahead with the sauce we want to make. In our recipes, we specify a particular pasta when we think it matters; otherwise, we leave it up to you. In the Guide to Ingredients, Tools & Techniques, you’ll find brief descriptions of some pasta shapes.
The pasta lovers among Moosewood cooks stock their home pantries with a variety of imported Italian pastas. Here’s why made in Italy matters: Pasta has been produced commercially in Italy since 1400, and still today, most of the best pastas are made there because the Italian government enforces strict national standards for ingredients and manufacturing processes, which results in a high-quality product, superior to most of our domestic pastas. Old ways are the best ways with pasta making, it seems. For instance, when pasta is extruded through bronze rather than Teflon dies, it has a rougher, more porous texture. When pasta is dried slowly at low temperatures, the protein is not denatured and the pasta is firmer when cooked. We recommend DeCecco, Barilla, and Bionaturae brands.
Cook pasta following these basic guidelines: Serve about one-fourth pound of pasta per person. Cook pasta in a large pot with plenty of water so that it quickly returns to a boil after the pasta is added and so that the pasta has room to float freely, which helps it cook evenly. Use about 4 or 5 quarts of salted water per pound of pasta. Ease the pasta into rapidly boiling water, stir to separate, and cover the pot. When the water returns to a boil, remove the lid and stir again.
Fresh pasta cooks in just a minute or two. The time needed to cook dried pasta depends on its thickness; don’t trust the time suggested on the pasta box—it’s sometimes too long. The only way to know when pasta is ready is to taste it. Several minutes before you expect the pasta to be done, start testing it every minute so you’ll catch it when it is al dente—that is, tender but with a firm bite. Drain it in a colander and transfer to a serving bowl.
Pasta is best eaten while it is hot, so it’s nice to heat the serving bowl. The simplest way to do that is to place a colander in your serving bowl in the sink. When the pasta is done,