The bubbling beauty of baked pasta
The other day, I climbed the communal stairs and opened the front door to the smell of cheese on toast.A welcome aroma made even more welcome when I realised that it was actually the tips of pasta tubes turning golden among grated cheese and creamy bechamel sauce.To add to the pleasant scene, my partner, Vincenzo, was washing up.Because that is the thing about pasta al forno – baked pasta – the time between finishing the construction and the eating is around about 25 minutes.That is, exactly the right amount of time to wash up and wipe up, or delegate those tasks to someone else while you make a salad and open a bottle of wine.
There are few things as beautiful, inviting and complete as baked pasta and a clean kitchen.The baked-pasta galaxy is a big one, with many stars.Ann and Franco Taruschio provide a brilliant recipe for a classic lasagne bolognese, made with fresh pasta, a rich (but not tomato-rich) ragu and parmesan-enriched bechamel.While their recipe is undoubtedly written for fresh pasta – either homemade or bought – it can and should be adapted for dried pasta, too.Just remember to plunge the dried sheets in boiling water for 30 seconds before using them, even if the packet instructions say not to soak them.
Also, make the bechamel slightly more liquid by increasing the milk by 100ml.Meanwhile, for a lasagne recipe specifically written for dried pasta and with a juicy, tomato-rich meat sauce, look to Katie Stewart via Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.Alternatively, Tamal Ray has a fantastic-sounding Sichuan-inspired lasagne made with pork mince, fermented bean ragu, bechamel and chard (pictured top).Some of the best lasagnes don’t contain meat at all.Meera Sodha’s recipes for asparagus lasagne with pecorino and spinach, walnut and tomato lasagne are scene-stealing.
Mushroom and taleggio make for an incredibly luscious dish, one that deserves to be considered among the best lasagnes of all.Almost as good, and certainly more spring-like, is this courgette and three-cheese version.Another option is Thomasina Miers’s swiss chard, leek and ricotta lasagne, which does contain pancetta, but that could easily be left out.Now is when things get simpler.Take any of the above, but instead of making or buying fresh pasta or soaking dried pasta sheets, or doing any sort of careful construction, simply swap the amount of sheets weight for weight (as a rule, four sheets are 100g) for dried short pasta – macaroni, penne, mezze maniche, fusilli or casarecce.
Cook the pasta for two-thirds of the recommended time (this is key), then mix the drained al dente pasta with the ragu/sauce/bechamel/veg/cheese.Simply spoon the whole lot into a buttered baking tray and bake for 20 minutes, until the sides are bubbling and the top is golden.Another tumble-style baked pasta is my version of a Neapolitan pasta al forno with meatballs and mozzarella or, for frozen pea-lovers, an extremely easygoing version with peas, cheese and bechamel.The queen of the traybake, Rukmini Iyer, provides us with a wealth of baked pasta joy, including her signature baked gnocchi with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil and her quick and easy crispy baked gnocchi puttanesca.Also simple and delicious are Angela Hartnett’s macaroni cheese and Meera Sodha’s vegan version.
And, last but not least, I love the sound of this smoked haddock, pea and chorizo macaroni cheese by Kirsty Scobie and Fenella Renwick.In all cases, the cooking and serving instructions are the same: bake until the sides are bubbling and the top is golden.Now, if you do the washing up, I’ll make the salad and open the wine.What I’ve read this week | One of the highlights of having some uninterrupted time to read recently was Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, which has an endless stream of small-scale delights and mischievous, self-deprecating humour.The book follows Mildred Lathbury, who recounts her life working at a charitable society for aged gentlewomen, helping at the local church and engaging with racy new neighbours.
Excellent Women also has a lot about food, which says so much about Mildred, her state of mind and postwar London: the liver and duck that William doesn’t order at a restaurant; a lunch of salad, camembert, bread and greengages that Mildred makes for Rocky; the relief found in tea and a small wedge of sandwich cake,Cooking the books | A wave of spring cookbooks are to be published, yet I am still catching up on last year’s – in particular Anna Ansari’s Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing, a culinary journey across Asia,Ansari, an Iranian-American living in east London, has an MA in east Asian studies and a previous life as a lawyer,All of these elements collide in her deeply researched, lived-in, sharp and witty writing,The recipes are fantastic, too – Iranian lamb and chickpea stew, Uzbek plov, Georgian cornbread, Uyghur cumin tofu.
The best thing I ate this week | The YouTube channel Crazy Korean Cooking is not only wildly entertaining, thanks to presenter Grace and her charming parents, but it is also a series of dynamic lessons about Korean recipes, ingredients, traditions and culture.Plus, it has changed the way my son and I cook ramen or, rather, Chapagetti, the second most popular ramen brand in Korea.Next up, kimchi! If you want to read the complete version of this newsletter please subscribe to receive Feast in your inbox every Thursday.
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