Spaghetti

Whether the tomatoes are fresh or canned is a seasonal matter: in summer, choose fresh ones; in winter, use canned ones. Both make a delicious, rich sauce for braising meatballs. When using fresh tomatoes, I like to peel them and I don’t bother to seed them, but that is the cook’s choice, depending on time constraints and inclination. The herbs are also a matter of choice: fresh or dried basil (the most usual addition), marjoram, or tarragon all enhance the sauce with a mildly sweet herbal presence; oregano or bay add a more assertive flavor. Spaghetti is traditional for this everyday, home-style dish, but other shapes, such as bow ties, small rigatoni, or penne, will also capture and hold the sauce as the pasta is lifted from plate to mouth. For the meatballs, I like to use my polpette, because their cheese centers add an extra oomph to the dish. But you can also use meatballs fashioned from either sweet Italian or Tuscan sausage with good results.

I am allergic to canned spaghetti sauce! Well, maybe not really, but I just can’t eat spaghetti sauce out of a can or jar. This sauce is easy, and it is even better warmed over the next day, after the flavors have had a chance to settle in.

I love living in Oklahoma. I do miss my family in Georgia, but luckily I get to travel back and forth a lot for visits. My Georgia family has also made the trek to Oklahoma several times, so now both places feel like home. Only once have I gotten so homesick I thought I wouldn’t make it, and that was because I was really sick with the flu and Mama wasn’t there to take care of me. Sometimes nobody will do except Mama! She made this soup for me, froze it in quart containers, packed it in dry ice (who knew you could get dry ice in Monticello?), and shipped it overnight to me in a Styrofoam cooler. When I got it the next morning, I cried, ate some soup, cried, ate some more soup, and thanked God for the most awesome mom on the planet!

We take this name from an old Iron Chef episode when the host declared “Battle Homard Lobster!” Yes, homard and lobster mean the same thing (like “minestrone soup”). Among other things that don’t make any sense: this is probably the most popular Joe Beef dish.

There are so many things I love about this dish, but what I love most is that it’s made from basic pantry ingredients, so it can be made on the fly when you really don’t want to go shopping for food. It’s in the spirit of the classic linguine with clams, but made with canned tuna instead. Because of the simplicity of this dish, the quality of all the ingredients is critical to the final result. The breadcrumbs are optional but do add great texture.

Delfina is one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco, and it happens to be just two doors down from the Market! Although much of their menu changes daily, this spaghetti is always on offer, and I think it’s one of the best things they make. It’s a great example of how a few high-quality ingredients (most of them pantry items) can come together for a simple but nourishing meal. Chef-owner Craig Stoll was generous enough to share his recipe. Craig employs the classical Italian technique of par-cooking the pasta and then finishing the cooking with the sauce. This not only thickens the sauce but also lets the sauce cook into the pasta. He says, “The result should be juicy and shiny and full of flavor, but with no residual sauce. All of the sauce should be contained within the body of the spaghetti. The last bite of pasta should bring the last bit of sauce with it.”

Whole-wheat spaghetti, which is slightly nuttier and chewier than regular pasta, holds its own with the kale, fontina, and rich, smoky bacon in this substantial main course.

Full of fiery red-pepper flakes and salty capers, olives, and anchovy fillets, this tomato-based sauce is a lively alternative to a traditional marinara. Tossing the cooked pasta with the sauce in the skillet helps coat the strands.

WHY IT’S LIGHT The beloved combination of spaghetti, bacon, and eggs (as in spaghetti carbonara) can still fit within a low-fat diet by replacing some of the pasta with wilted frisée. Top each serving with some crisped bacon pieces and a fried egg.

WHY IT’S LIGHT With less oil, fewer nuts, and more basil, this better-for-you pesto cuts calories without sacrificing any of the fabulous flavor. Serve the sauce over whole-wheat pasta for more fiber. Extra pesto freezes nicely, so consider doubling the batch.

This dish of Lidia’s is what I make for supper when I return home tired and hungry after traveling. I like it very plain, with lots of parsley, but you could spice it up by adding a pinch of dried chile flakes or chopped anchovy, and serving it with grated cheese.

Kale is a strong-flavored green that is both bitter and sweet—Red Russian and lacinato varieties are especially good—and combined with garlic, dried chile flakes, and nutty wheat spaghetti, kale makes a bold and satisfying pasta dish.

Here’s a dish that is so much more than the sum of its parts, which are all simple pantry ingredients that you probably have on hand right now. Bread crumbs were traditionally a thrifty way for Italian housewives to use up leftover crusts of bread, but they really make the dish; sautéed in olive oil, the bread crumbs get crispy and make a crunchy crust on each strand of pasta. I use black and green olives to get both the fruity and the salty flavors, but if you have only one or the other the dish will still be great. It really doesn’t get much easier than this—or more appealing.

The sauce for this pasta is really a simple fresh salsa, and if you are making it in the summer months, feel free to substitute two or three diced beefsteak tomatoes for the canned. It is just as good at room temperature as it is served hot, so it can be made ahead of time—perfect for large get-togethers and buffet-style parties. The sliced steak turns this dish into a meal. I’m seeing smoked almonds used more and more in Italy and I have fallen in love with the deep flavor they add; however, as they are quite salty, when I use them in a dish I reduce the amount of salt I would normally add.

Nothing warms up a cold winter night like chicken soup, especially when there are hearty chunks of chicken and pieces of pasta waiting in the bottom of the bowl. When I came home from the hospital with Jade, friends and family took turns bringing food by for Todd and me. Sandra Tripicchio, who is an invaluable part of putting together my shows and books, made us a big batch of this lemony chicken soup, and it’s been a staple in our house ever since. You’ll love the way the lemon brightens the soup’s flavor.

In this dish, the pasta takes on a fruity acidity from the reduced wine—smoothed by the last-minute addition of butter—and a beautiful mahogany glaze that’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. The kind of wine you use is of some importance, although it need not be expensive. Try a decent Chianti Classico, a light wine from the Côtesdu-Rhône, or a good-quality (red) Zinfandel. This is a true starter, not a main course; follow it with something gutsy, like grilled meat or fish, or something grand like Crisp Roasted Rack of Lamb (page 187).

The dish has a thick creaminess that you can never duplicate with canned tomatoes, no matter how good they are. So the season when you can make it—when there are good, ripe tomatoes in the market—is fairly short; where I live, just two or at the most three months a year. There is an ideal instant for serving this sauce: When the tomatoes soften and all of their juices are in the skillet, the sauce suddenly begins to thicken. At that moment, it is at its peak; another minute or two later, many of the juices will have evaporated and, although the essence of the sauce is equally intense, it won’t coat the pasta as well. If this happens, just add a little fresh olive oil or butter to the finished dish.

You might think of this as winter pesto, with a higher percentage of walnuts and the always-available parsley filling in for summer’s basil—though if you can find good basil, by all means use it.

This dish which has zucchini as its focus—is simply amazing when made in midsummer with tender, crisp squash, but it isn’t half bad even when made in midwinter with a limp vegetable that’s traveled halfway around the world to get to your table. Either way, it is an unusual use for zucchini, which here substitutes for meat in a kind of vegetarian spaghetti carbonara, the rich pasta dish featuring eggs, bacon, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Made with zucchini instead of bacon, the dish becomes a little less fat-laden, obviously, but it is still rich and delicious.