Pasta is the perfect quick and easy comfort food. You can whip up a bowl in less time than it takes for the pizza delivery to arrive. Short or long, dried or fresh, saucy or not, stuffed, layered, baked – the possibilities are endless with this simple, delicious food.
Spaghetti alle Vongole al Cartoccio Spaghetti alle vongole is the classic Italian clam dish. Vongole means ‘clam’ in Italian and I use the small South Australian vongole that are closest to Italy’s vongole veraci, but you can use any clams or other bivalve for this dish, including mussels. I first had spaghetti alle vongole al […]
Salmon with Fregola Salad This baked salmon with fregola salad is a great dinner party dish as it’s both easy and impressive. The fregola salad was taught to me by chef Giovanni Pilu, from Pilu at Freshwater, who usually serves it with lamb (see video below). Fregola is a reminder of the Arabic influence in […]
Bottarga & Lemon Pappardelle I love pasta! I also love lemon and bottarga, so I created this simple recipe combining all three. It’s inspired by my friend and co-author, Giovanni Pilu who introduced me to the joys of bottarga along with many other Sardinian ingredients (you can order his Aussie-made bottarga online and scroll to […]
Potato Gnocchi I love potato gnocchi and when I asked restaurateur Lucio Galletto if they’re popular in Liguria he replied “On special occasions, we say: ‘Come home Mamma’s making gnocchi.’” Potato gnocchi are so versatile, they’re delicious dressed with just about any pasta sauce including pesto, easy gnocchi Sorrentina from the Amalfi coast, or the […]
Trofie al Pesto Genovese I love this classic way of serving pesto – with the beans and potatoes cooked in the same water as the pasta it’s more like a main meal than a starter. This is done with various pasta shapes in Liguria, but the most typical are trenette (a thin flat pasta similar […]
Cicciones with Pork Ragu I love the chewy texture of cicciones with pork ragu. The name of this rustic Sardinian pasta means ‘little fat ones’, which is so appropriate! This is the same pasta dough used to make lombrichi, the ‘worm-shaped’ Sardinian pasta you’ll see on the video below. The full-flavoured Serra Lori rosato, made […]
Pasta Frittata This is the best way I’ve found to cook leftover pasta that has a relatively dry sauce, such as tagliatelle Bolognese, orecchiette with broccoli and spaghetti aglio e olio. The photo here was made with leftover orecchiette with salsiccia & mushrooms (see video below), and was perfect with a glass of Truffle Hill […]
Bucatini all’Amatriciana I love tomato, cheese and all things quick and easy, so I’m not sure why it took me so long to try my hand at bucatini all’Amatriciana, one of Italy’s classic pasta dishes. Perhaps it’s because guanciale (cured pork cheek) can be tricky to find – so when I discovered Salumi Australia’s guanciale […]
Gorgonzola Walnut Sauce with Lumache I first had this sauce many years ago in an Italian restaurant in Glebe. I remember writing (no email back then) and asking the chef for the recipe, but he ignored my request. He served it with the little shell-shaped pasta called conchiglie, but I’ve used ‘snail shells’, lumache; it […]
Ricotta Stuffed Pasta Shells in Taleggio Sauce My cooking’s often inspired by what happens to be on hand, like some delicious Vannella ricotta leftover from recipe testing and a huge bunch of chives from a herb patch gone berserk. That’s how this dish came about. Giant pasta shells, called conchiglioni, are simple to fill and […]
