Pasta Week Recipes

by Bryan

LadyMin offers Mezze Penne with Pesto from her Garden.

Kryten presents an entire meal for you and your friends.

Appetizer
Gamberetti alla Salvia
(Shrimps in Sage)

Entree
Carciofi e Pisellini alla Romana
(Roman Artichokes with Peas)

Pasta
Spaghetti Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino
(Spaghetti in Garlic and Oil with Peperoncini)

Dessert
Dolce di Ricotta
(Roman Cheese and Cream Tart)

Gamberetti alla Salvia (Shrimp in Sage)

Ingredients:
450g (1 lb.) small raw shrimp
15 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
10 fresh sage leaves
Salt and fresh ground pepper

Preparation:
Rinse shrimp in cold water and then dry off on a folded paper towel.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy pan at medium temperature.
Sauté the sage leaves for two minutes.
Add the shrimp, cover the pan and simmer for two more minutes.
Remove the cover; add salt and pepper and lower heat.
Let shrimp simmer without cover for two more minutes.

Garnish shrimp with sage and serve on a warm plate.

Carciofi e Pisellini alla Romana (Roman Artichoke with Peas)

Ingredients:
6 Italian artichokes (2” diameter)
1 large lemon, quartered
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 slices of raw ham, finely chopped
5 tablespoons olive oil
3 sprigs fresh mint, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
300g (2/3 lb.) fresh peas

Preparation:
Cut the outer layer of leaves off the artichokes and then remove the hard points on the others. Cut in half and remove the fuzz (if any). Put quartered lemon and artichokes in cold water and soak for 30 minutes.

Sauté the finely chopped onion and ham slowly in a large pan, adding oil. Add finely chopped garlic and mint and simmer for 5 minutes on low heat.

Drain artichokes and put in pan.
Add salt and pepper and simmer for 15 minutes.
Occasionally pour some water over the artichokes until they are almost tender and then add the peas.
Simmer for 10 more minutes and serve.

Spaghetti Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino (Spaghetti in Garlic and Oil with Peperoncini)

Ingredients:
400g (3/4 lb.) spaghetti
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small hot Peperoncini pepper, finely chopped
5 tablespoons olive oil
Italian flat parsley, finely chopped
Salt

Preparation:
Chop the garlic, parsley and pepper.
Cook spaghetti in salted water until al dente.
Sauté garlic and pepper in oil, and then add salt and sprinkle with parsley.

Spaghetti should be done at the same time as the sauce.
Drain spaghetti, add to pan and mix.
Serve immediately.

Dolce di Ricotta (Roman Cheese and Cream Tart)

Ingredients:
700g (24 oz.) fresh ricotta cheese
200g (1 cup) powdered sugar
4 eggs
4 tablespoons white rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ liter (2 cups) heavy cream
30g (2 tablespoons) bitter dark-chocolate (high cocoa content), grated
12 candied cherries

Preparation:
Combine ricotta cheese, powdered sugar, eggs, rum and vanilla extract in a large bowl.
Whip heavy cream and fold 3/4 of it into the first ingredients.
Rinse a clean glass bowl with cold water, pour cream mixture into bowl and refrigerate for at least six hours.

Before serving, overturn contents of the bowl onto a plate and garnish with remaining whipped cream, grated chocolate and cherries.

Buon appetito!

Kryten notes: “This is meant to be eaten as a set menu for a family or group of friends. It tastes better that way.”

7 comments

1 Kryten42 { 09.18.08 at 11:14 pm }: Drats! Now I’m drooling over my KB! LOL ANd I just had lunch too. 😉

Lady Min’s Mezze Penne with Pesto is yuuuuummmmy!! I know. 🙂 And no fair… she has a pic on her blog to go with the recipe!

Hmmm… I think I have some pic’s of mine above… Maybe I should post them 🙂

Anyway… Enjoy all!! 😀
2 Bryan { 09.18.08 at 11:27 pm }: You need to start your food blog in all of your “abundant spare time”. 😉
3 Kryten42 { 09.18.08 at 11:35 pm }: Hmmm… In honor of pasta week, I’ll add some tips on cooking real *al dente* pasta (any kind of pasta, usually made from duram wheat, but should work for other kinds also.)

Rule #1: DON’T go by the time on the pack! That’s a general guide and will differ in reality for many reasons.

Depending on the amount of pasta being cooked, use a sufficiently big saucepan. Example: for 500g of pasta, you need at least a 2liter saucepan. Basically, the pasta must be well covered in water, generally two – three times above the pasta in the saucepan.

Fill the saucepan about 2/3 with water, add a generous amount of salt (the typical cheap store bulk pack salt will do), add some olive oil so that as it floats on the water, it covers the surface (any oil will do in a pinch, but olive oil is best, it doesn’t need to be extra virgin or anything fancy). 🙂

Once the water is boiling well, add the past in small amounts and stir. Whilst cooking, stir often. After about 5 min’s, begin to check the pasta regularly. It should be going soft and becoming lighter in color. now and then taste a piece (after rinsing in hot water from the sink). When it tastes right (up to individual tastes here, but generally should be just a bit firm, as the pasta will continue cooking on it own for a bit even out of the water from the heat and the next step.)

Have a kettle or pan of boiling clean water (about 1liter will do) ready for when the pasta is ready to drain. I use a long handled stainless steel colander that I can easily suspend bridged across the kitchen sink. 🙂 Empty the pasta from the saucepan into the colander, and then rinse with the boiled fresh water. This removes the excess salt & oil, cleans the melted bits of wheat stuck to the pasta, and cooks a few sec’s more to bring the pasta to the ‘al dente’ point. 🙂

It may take a bit of practice, but the result is worth it. 🙂

Enjoy!
4 Kryten42 { 09.18.08 at 11:37 pm }: LOL @ Bryan! Spare time! LMAO You are funny like a rubber crutch m8! :b 😉 Heh…

Spare time… I vaguely remember the concept lurking in the dim recesses of my mind… *sigh* One day! 😉

Cheers! Heh… 😀
5 Bryan { 09.19.08 at 12:11 am }: I don’t get spare time, I get “compile time” waiting after getting the changes to compile and run so I can check for errors from the data set. I hate conversions.
6 Kryten42 { 09.19.08 at 12:30 am }: LOL I know! I’m trying to convert old, leaky, insecure Pearl (and other CGI) code I wrote a decade and over ago to PHP & Python! Good thing I commented the code as I lost all the documentation I wrote some time ago. I still look at code and think “Why the hell did I do that?” or “What the heck is this for?” LOL My memory sux. *sigh*
7 Bryan { 09.19.08 at 11:55 am }: My biggest problem was that the stuff was originally written for a different group of people who wanted to do different things with it. Now I’m cutting out huge chunks of code that the new guys don’t use, but I have to be careful that I don’t lose any of the functions that are used in other modules.

I know what things do, but it’s hard to remember where they are done, if you know what I mean.