Spaghetti with Shrimp and Spicy Tomato Sauce

I need to think of a cooler-sounding/shorter name for this delicious dish. Any votes? My dad makes something similar, usually on Christmas Eve, except his also has scallops and calamari (drool). And he also used to make "shrimp sauce spaghetti" fairly regularly when I was little, now that I think of it.

Shrimp is (are?) one my favorite things. I'm a total sucker for any menu item that mentions shrimp. Grocery shopping the other day, I was thinking about this, and then I realized that I no longer have to be at the mercy of a restaurant menu. I can just cook with shrimp. Anything I want. Any time. Mountains and mountains of succulent shrimp...or, to be more reasonable, I suppose, a handful or so cooked in a spicy tomato sauce.

The husband has returned (hooray!), and he, while not an insane shrimp enthusiast, loved this dish, too. So it's a crowd-pleaser, to boot.

Here's how:

3/4-1 lb spaghetti (angel hair would be great, too, or linguine fine)
1/4 cup olive oil
5-7 small/medium cloves garlic
Red pepper flakes
Ground cayenne pepper
3 small tomatoes, chopped and lightly salted
1 small can tomato sauce
Splash of white wine
25 or so uncooked shrimp, peeled and with tails removed
Dried or fresh parsley

Combine the olive oil and garlic in a pan over medium heat. Sprinkle in red pepper flakes to taste, and a pinch or two of cayenne. Let the garlic cook for a couple of minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes. Let the tomatoes cook with a garlic for a couple minutes, then stir in the tomato sauce. Start the water boiling for your spaghetti. Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Partially cover if it seems like the sauce is evaporating. Stir occasionally.

When the water boils, add the spaghetti. About 4-5 minutes before the noodles are done, add a splash of white wine to the sauce and turn the heat back up to medium. About 2-3 minutes before the noodles are done, add the shrimp to the sauce and cook until they pink and plump; sprinkle in a pinch of parsley. Turn off the heat, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan.

Tortellini with Sage Brown Butter

(from Mario Batali)

Mario Batali, you officially have a new fan. I mean, I have been dying to go to Eataly. Other than that, I wasn't entirely sold (this opinion was clearly based on zero evidence). But then there was the papalina recipe. And now, this. And now, I'm completely won over. I want to go buy all the cookbooks you've ever written, Batali.

I've always wanted to make a sage brown butter sauce. I've tried. But something wasn't right - the recipe sounded way too heavy on the butter (it is butter sauce, I suppose), or I burned the butter, or there wasn't enough sauce. But I did a quick Google search tonight, Batali's was the first one, and what I saw finally looked right.

The secret ingredient was lemon juice. Something to cut the butter. Something to give it a little zip and make it into a real sauce. The addition of parmesan didn't hurt, either.

This is so, so easy. And so, so good. Just...satisfying. Subtle yet powerful at the same time. And for a butter sauce, it doesn't feel overly buttery or heavy, either. It takes as long to make as it takes to cook pasta. Are you sold yet?

8 oz dried tortellini
2 tbsp butter
4 sage leaves
Juice from about 1/4-1/3 of a lemon
1/4 or so grated parmesan (I used a tad less)

While the pasta cooks, melt the butter in a saute pan, and cook over medium heat until the thinnest liquid of the butter starts to get golden brown. Add the sage leaves and remove from heat, then squeeze the lemon juice directly into the pan. Set aside.

Drain your pasta, reserving just a bit (less than a 1/4 cup) of pasta water. Pour pasta into the saute pan with a little pasta water and return to heat. Toss to coat, add the cheese, and toss to coat again. Heaven!

Pasta alla Papalina, with Homemade Noodles

(Pasta recipe from Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking"; papalina recipe from Mario Batali)

I'm not going to sugar-coat this. My first solo pasta-making experience was kind of a hot mess, process-wise. The end result was good, but what it took to get there was less than pretty.

Frankly, I was surprised, because I've been making pasta (lasagna noodles) with my mom for Christmas for years. Since I can remember, really. And, I mean, it's a process - it takes awhile, etc. - but it's pretty smooth sailing.

The same cannot be said when I went it alone. The first thing that went wrong was breaking the eggs into the flour. Marcella says to just make a little "bowl" out of flour, right on the countertop, and break the eggs into it, then mix. I made my flour bowl all wrong, and the eggs went pouring out the side:

 Yeah. It just got worse after I took this picture. Lots of fun to clean up. I started over with a bowl, and made a much better (deeper, wider) flour bowl this time:

Things went smoothly after this for awhile. I slowly incorporated the flour into the eggs. It was still pretty sticky, so I added more flour. And then more. And then some more. Still sticky. More flour. You get the idea. Finally, I got to this:

I then divided it into smaller pieces to run through the pasta maker:

And those eventually became this:

That doesn't look so bad, you might say. But the thing was that the pasta just stayed sticky. The whole time. When it came time to run these pieces through the noodle-making attachment of the pasta maker (there I made another, unforgivable, inconceivable error - I rinsed the attachment off. I got it wet, and it took forever, and all kinds of experimenting, to get it dry), they just got stuck everywhere - to themselves, to the pasta maker, to me. I even quadrupled, at least, the drying time. No dice. Eventually, I just ended up hand-cutting them.

There is a line in Marcella's cookbook that says, "allow the strips...to dry for 10 minutes or more, depending on the temperature and ventilation of your kitchen". I remember reading that and scoffing. Who does Marcella think I am, I thought, that I have the skill and time to consider the temperature and ventilation of my kitchen? Pah! Well, Marcella, as usual, was right. The difference between making pasta in the middle of dry, cold December, and making it in the middle of hot, humid August, is - clearly - huge. Yes, I will blame my difficulty on the weather.

Like I said, the end result - the taste and texture - was great. Worth it. And the papalina! Mostly, I just love to say - and write - that word. But also, it's delicious. Slightly lighter than carbonara, and a nice pop with the peas. Definitely a make-again.

Sheesh, want the recipe, already?

HOMEMADE PASTA NOODLES (for 3/4 lb pasta; pasta maker with roller required)
1 cup flour
2 large eggs

Pour the flour on a work surface, if you're brave, or into a bowl, if you know better. Shape the flour into a mound and hollow out the center, making sure it's deep enough and wide enough to fit two eggs. Break the eggs into the hollow.

Beat the eggs with a fork, gently. Slowly draw a little flour into the eggs, little by little, and mix the eggs and flour as you go until the eggs are no longer runny. Draw the sides of the mound together with your hands and work the eggs and flour together with your hands until the eggs and flour are combined. Add more flour if you think it's too moist.

You can test the moistness of your dough by pressing your dry, clean thumb deep into the center of the mass and seeing if it comes out clean. If it does, you don't need any more flour and you can move ahead.

The next step is to knead the dough. With your hands. Always knead in the same direction. Do this for about 8-10 minutes.

Divide the dough (you can cut it with a knife) into six equal parts. Set up your machine with a clean, dry dishtowel or tablecloth nearby. Set the pair of rollers on the machine at their widest setting. Flatten one of the pieces of dough by pounding it with your hand, then run it through the machine. Fold the dough twice, into a third of its length, and then feed it narrow-end-first into the machine again. Do this 2-3 more times, then lay the flattened piece of pasta on the towel and repeat with the other five pieces. Don't let the pieces touch one another.

Adjust the pair of rollers on the machine down one notch (one notch tighter). Run each piece of pasta through the machine once, this time without folding, narrow-end-first.

Repeat this process, going one notch tighter, until you reach the desired thickness. I stopped at the second-to-last notch, because mine were so sticky that they would've started to fall apart if they were any thinner.

You'll see the pasta get progressively thinner and longer as you go.

Once you're done with the thinning, let the strips dry for 10 or more minutes...or, you know, an hour, if your kitchen is hot and humid. They shouldn't be so dry that they crack when cut, but they shouldn't stick to one another.

In theory, at this point you would attach the noodle-cutting contraption and run each piece through the machine. Or, you can cut it with a knife.

Fresh-made noodles cut really, really quickly. Gather the pasta in a single towel and slide them into boiling, salted water. They will become whiter when they're ready - eyeball it, and taste a couple, to know they're al dente.

PASTA ALLA PAPALINA
3 tbsp or so olive oil
3 oz or so sliced prosciutto, cut or torn into squares/strips
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
2 large eggs
1/2-3/4 lb pasta
1/2 cup grated parmesan
Ground black pepper

Combine half the oil and the prosciutto in a pan and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the prosciutto has rendered some of its fat and is golden brown. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas.

Cook the pasta and drain it, reserving about 1/4 cup of the pasta water. (Guess who forgot this step?)

Whisk the eggs together in a medium bowl to break them up, then whisk in the remaining olive oil and half of the reserved pasta water.

Add the pasta to the prosciutto and peas and stir and toss over medium heat to mix well. Add the egg, remove from the heat, and toss vigorously to slightly cook the eggs (add a splash or two more of the reserved pasta water if necessary to loosen the sauce). Stir in the parmesan, season with pepper, and serve immediately with grated cheese on the side.

Cucumber Lemonade

(adapted from The Berghoff)

My dearest friend Ali is getting married to a wonderful guy, Patrick, this October. Last winter I had the pleasure of going to a few tastings with them in Chicago as they chose their caterer. They decided on the The Berghoff, a Chicago tradition, which featured, among other things, a wicked cucumber lemonade. I've been wanting to make it since December, and finally got around to it. Lucky for me, The Berghoff features this recipe on its website.

Now, their recipe makes a full gallon of lemonade. Even halving the recipe, I didn't have a pitcher large enough to fit all of it. So I basically left most of the water out (which is why the picture is so very green), and then added water and ice to each glass when I served it.

This is the most refreshing drink. I'm not really that big a fan of lemonade, but this wins me over. The perfect summer beverage. And, if you wanted to really spice things up, I bet it'd be great mixed with some Hendricks gin.

For half a gallon:

3 large cucumbers (technically, halving their recipe would call for two cucumbers, but I wanted more), sliced into a few pieces

10 lemons

6 cups of water

1.5 cups raw sugar

Pinch of salt

Puree the cucumbers in a blender or food processor (you may need to do this in chunks). Strain the liquid through a thin sieve into a large pitcher. Add the juice of the lemons and the sugar; stir to dissolve. Add the water, a pinch of salt, and stir again.

Serve over a glass of ice. You can garnish with a slice of lemon, cucumber, or mint. Sip in the rocking chair on your front porch.

Pasta alla Gricia

So, there are a few basic Roman dishes that are all fairly simple variations on one another. There's all'amatriciana (tomato, onion, pancetta), carbonara (romano/parmesan cheese, egg, pancetta), cacio e pepe (romano cheese and black pepper), arrabbiata (tomatoes, chili, pancetta), alla papalina (romano cheese, black pepper, prosciutto, eggs...omg, why have I not made that yet?), alfredo (parmesan and butter)...and alla gricia, which is just romano, black pepper, and pancetta.

Now, while these seem like pretty simple concepts, and they are, there is a fair amount of hullaballoo over how to make them. It's mostly a traditionalist argument around what P.G. Wodehouse might refer to as "the purity of the turf". Add onion or shallots to carbonara? To amatriciana? Sacrilege! See? It's very serious.

I'm very much about food tradition and all, but there are certain realities of my kitchen, and a certain laxity in my spirit, I suppose, that leads me off the beaten path from time to time. In this case, I made pasta alla gricia with rigatoni instead of spaghetti (spaghetti would have been better, admittedly), and I used...sigh...a Kraft parmesan-romano grated cheese blend (it's real cheese, though - no fillers!) instead of a pecorino romano, which also probably would've been better. Some argue for guianciale over pancetta; I used pancetta. Other than that, I stuck to the purist guns. As far as I know, at least.

This cooks up fast, too!

3/4 lb pasta

2 tbsp olive oil

2 thickish slices pancetta, diced

1/2 cup grated Romano cheese

1 cup reserved pasta water

Plenty of ground black pepper

Get your water boiling. In a pan, combine your olive oil and pancetta over medium, and cook until slightly browned. Set aside/remove from heat. 

Meanwhile, cook your pasta, setting aside the cup of pasta water. Drain pasta and add directly to the pan with the pancetta, tossing to coat. Add the cheese and toss to coat again. If it's dry, add pasta water. Add plenty of black pepper, tossed in, and serve with more grated cheese.