Canned Tomato

Marinara is my quintessential anytime tomato sauce. I can start it when the pasta water goes on the stove and it will be ready when the pasta is just cooked. Yet, in its short cooking time, it develops such fine flavor and pleasing consistency that you may well want to make a double batch—using some right away and freezing the rest for suppers to come. The beauty of this marinara sauce is that it has a freshness, acidity, and simplicity of taste, in contrast to the complexity and mellowness of the long-cooking tomato sauce that follows. This recipe for marinara includes lots of fresh basil, which I keep in the house at all times, now that it is available in local supermarkets year-round. I cook a whole basil stalk (or a handful of big sprigs with many leaves attached) submerged in the tomatoes to get all the herb flavor. Then I remove these and finish the sauce and pasta with fresh shredded leaves, giving it another layer of fresh-basil taste. (If you are freezing some of the sauce, by the way, you can wait until you’re cooking with it to add the fresh-basil garnish.) This sauce can be your base for cooking any fish fillet, chicken breast, pork fillet, or veal scaloppini. Sear any of these in a pan, add some marinara sauce, season with your favorite herbs, and let it perk for a few minutes—you’ll have yourself a good dish.

Salsa arrabbiata—literally, “angry” sauce—is a tomato-based pasta sauce made in countless versions in Italy, sometimes with meat, sometimes without, but always with some kind of hot pepper. I like bits of meat in my sauce, either thick bacon or, even better, prosciutto “end” (see below). The heat here comes from small whole pickled peppers, packed in jars of vinegar, labeled peperoncini or peperoncino (the same term I use for red pepper flakes). Though these are milder than pickled “cherry” peppers, they provide plenty of spice—especially peperoncini Toscano, which I hope you can find. The sauce should have a pleasing play of textures as well as tastes, providing nice and distinctive bites of all the ingredients. Cut the onions, peperoncini, and prosciutto (or bacon) thick enough so that they don’t get lost, or lose their shape in the tomato sauce.

You don’t have to wait for primavera—springtime—to make this quick skillet sauce. You probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry and refrigerator all year: canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, a few perennially fresh vegetables like broccoli, mushrooms, and zucchini, and sweet peas from the freezer. (The recipe lists the vegetables I prefer, but don’t be afraid to use others, if that’s what you have on hand.) A key step here is parboiling the firm green vegetables and shocking them in ice water. Then they will only need to heat briefly in the tomato sauce and will keep their own colors, flavors, and textures. This recipe yields about 5 cups or more of sauce, depending on the vegetables. If that looks like more than you need for the amount of pasta you are cooking, take the extra sauce out of the skillet before you toss in the pasta. (See box, page 97.) Refrigerate the reserved sauce and use within 2 or 3 days, or freeze it for a few weeks (it will still taste good, although the color of the vegetables changes a bit in reheating it).

Sicilians are passionate about both food and opera, so it is no surprise that one of the island’s most celebrated dishes is pasta alla Norma. What better way to honor the composer Vincenzo Bellini, a native son of Catania (on Sicily’s eastern coast), than to name a delicious pasta for Norma, one of the great operatic masterworks of all time? I love both the opera and the dish, and, I can assure you, aside from their name, they’re quite different. Those of you familiar with opera know that the title role of Norma is so difficult that only the greatest sopranos ever sing it. On the other hand, this recipe is simple and easily made.

With thin vermicelli and tender small clams, this is a very quick-cooking (and very delicious) pasta. To yield their most intense flavor, though, the clams should be freshly shucked and totally raw when they go into the sauce, rather than being steamed in the shell. The method given here—freezing the clams briefly before shucking—makes this task easier than you can imagine, even if you are not a skilled shellfish shucker.

Here is a delicious pasta recipe, another example of the Roman affinity for offal. Whether tripe (trippa) or paiata (pasta sauce made with the stomach of a suckling lamb); or oxtails braised with tomatoes, celery and carrots (coda alla vaccinara), a true Roman meal is bound to include one of them. So what’s a little chicken liver with pasta, as in this dish? The Romans love it and have been enjoying it for centuries, so why shouldn’t you?

Tortelli are ravioli by another name—a square, filled pasta. And though they vary greatly, like all pastas, tortelli often are filled with fresh ricotta and spinach or other greens, herbs, or vegetables. In Maremma, where carnivorous appetites rule, such a meatless approach is not typical. As you’ll find in this set of recipes, tortelli maremmani have meat inside and outside—and lots of it. Fried chopped chicken livers plump up the tortelli, in addition to ricotta and spinach. Once cooked, the tortelli are dressed with a typical ragù maremmano, made with three chopped meats slowly cooked in tomatoes. My friend Alma likes best boar, chicken, and pork, but here I call for veal, pork, and sausage, because I find that combination comes close to the complexity of the boar. Of course, if you can get boar, by all means use it. This is a great pasta, and worth all the stirring and stuffing. However, it is not necessary to make everything here and put the ingredients together in just one way. The components of tortelli maremmani give many options for delicious meals (and convenient advance preparation). For instance, it’s fine to make the filling and the pasta for the tortelli and leave the ragù for another day. You can sauce your tortelli simply with sage butter, pages 49–50, or just shower them with Tuscan olive oil and Pecorino Toscano. On the other hand, go right to the ragù recipe—skip the tortelli—and make this marvelous sauce to dress any pasta, fresh or dry, or polenta or gnocchi. Indeed, the ragù recipe makes enough for two or more meals. Toss a couple of cups of ragù with spaghetti for a fabulous (and fast) supper one night, and freeze the rest. It will still be perfect whenever you do get a chance to roll and fill those plump tortelli maremmani.

GINA I can hear “It’s a Man’s World” by James Brown playing whenever I make this chili. But beer, bacon, and brisket are three of my favorite “b”s, too. So don’t be scared, ladies—this delicious chili will please the whole family, not just your quarterbacks. As with most stews and chilis, this is best made the night before, and reheated right before the big game starts!

Don’t let these puppies fool you. We call them mini-pizzas, but there’s nothing all that little about them, in either size or flavor. It just makes us feel better, because you find yourself eating a lot of them before you know it!

If you’re a Ro*tel lover, then this is your dish. (In case you aren’t familiar, it’s a blend of diced tomatoes with green chiles, often used to make a mean chili con queso.) We love how Tanya adds spinach to her version of this popular Southern dip, so it makes us feel healthy and good even though it’s still a “comfort” food. We’re typically starving upon arrival, and a great spicy spinach dip with a bowl of tortilla chips is a good way to take the edge off. Throw your luggage down and dig in!

GINA When we think of romance, we think of something tantalizing and with a little kick. So we created this spicy pasta with just that in mind. Spark up your taste buds with crushed red pepper and roasted tomatoes, and feast your eyes on the jewel-like pink shrimp and shiny black mussel shells nestled in that silky bed of linguine and ribbons of basil leaves. (Ladies, all of this careful planning helps us please our men!) The look of the final dish is just as beautiful at home as it is at a fancy restaurant. Now, what can beat that?

This dish reminds us of warmth and comfort, and it also adds heartiness to the menu. Being served BBQ chili mac basically means a big “welcome to the Neely home.” Cavatappi are great noodles for this dish, because they’re shaped like corkscrews, so you can grab all the good stuff and get the full flavor. If you can’t find cavatappi, elbow macaroni comes in a distant second.

GINA Ever since I was a little girl, my mom has been telling me that if you don’t eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day you’ll have a bad year ahead of you. Now, when I was younger I didn’t care a bit. I was going through that awkward stage anyway—how much worse could it be? But as I got older, I learned to love that black-eyed pea tradition, convinced that my year was going to be fantastic! And you know what’s funny? I tell my girls the same thing. Who says traditions and superstitions aren’t effective? Not to mention that black-eyed peas are rich in calcium and vitamin A. What could be bad about that? Of course, this being a Gina recipe, I added in my favorite collard greens. . . . Mmm, even better.

If you master any one recipe in this book, this should be it. Not only does a bright, fresh tomato sauce turn any freshly made pasta into an event, but it’s also an indispensable component in dishes from basic ragus to Maloreddus with Squid, Tomato Sauce, and Lemon (page 97) and Linguine with Shrimp (page 90). Part of the fun of making your own sauce is squishing the whole tomatoes—and they must be San Marzanos—with your fingers. It can get messy, especially for those of us who wear glasses, but it’s worth it (and a good stress-reduction technique, to boot). Find an apron and get ready for a simple, well-balanced sauce that you’ll always want to have on hand. And when you can have this sauce ready in under an hour, why ever open a jar again?

Using fresh ricotta as the base for gnocchi creates pasta of incredible delicacy with a richness that stands up well to bold sauces such as the short rib ragu. Think of forming the gnocchi as a meditation, enjoying the process and the feel of the dough under your fingers. This is a great basic meat sauce that’s a staple at Tavolàta. Using short ribs instead of ground chuck makes for better depth of flavor and richness. You can either grind the meat yourself if you have a grinder or an attachment for your mixer, or ask your butcher to grind it for you. This is a fairly thick ragu that goes especially well with ricotta gnocchi or freshly made pappardelle.

This bright, sassy soup is full of big flavors—garlic, peppers, and lemon—that team up to accent the briny clams. The dish is then tamed, just a bit, with velvety Controne beans, one of my favorite Italian beans. Goat Horn peppers are red, slim peppers that you can find in Spanish and Italian markets, or in some upscale grocery stores. The preparation of this soup is fairly straightforward, and once you start cooking, the dish moves quickly. Have all of your ingredients prepared and ready before you begin.

Rich and meaty Brunswick stew is a true Southern classic. This streamlined rendition of my mom’s perfect version makes a huge amount of food—but to my thinking, that’s the point of stew. It tastes even better the next day, so it’s a great make-ahead meal if you are planning to have weekend visitors or feed a big crowd. You can also pop some in the freezer for a quick-fix weeknight supper another time.

To make meatballs that are moist and tender, avoid using very lean ground turkey. For convenience, make a batch of sauce and meatballs ahead and freeze for up to three months.