How to make a great/simple "Recession Time" Italian Pasta with Spaghetti Sauce.

A Simple and Inexpensive Italian Pasta Dinner.

My paternal grandparents came from Bari Italy. When I was 11 years old I went to live with them and was introduced to new foods. I learned how simple real Italian food is. My video and recipe is perfect for people who do not have a lot of experience cooking. This is typical of real Italian cooking, simplicity. This demonstration is for a simple tomato sauce made with tomato paste, garlic, salt and pepper and basil (optional). Great inexpensive home cooked meal. Few ingredients. It's all in the cooking process, which is easy.

In my opinion this particular sauce tastes best with linguini or regular spaghetti.

*One mistake beginners make is to cook at high heat, (too high). When in doubt use low/medium heat, you will never go wrong.

This will serve about 4-5 people.

Ingredients:

1. One box of linguini or spaghetti.
2. 2-3 cloves of garlic.
3. One can of tomato paste (6 oz. can)
4. About 2-3 cups of water depending on your preferred thickness.
5. Salt and pepper to taste. Keep salt and pepper on the low side until you taste near the end of cooking.
You can always add more salt or pepper before removing from heat, but you can't remove them if you add too much.

7. 2 tbs (tablespoons) vegetable or corn oil. (You can use a combo of veg and olive oil, but it's not recommended that you use 100% olive oil here. It tends to burn/smoke very easily.

8. 2 tsp (teaspoons) chopped basil (optional).

Process:

You start with the garlic. Remove skin, and slice thinly.

Add garlic to preheated sauce pan with oil added. (Do not make very hot, only low/medium heat).
*If you add the garlic to an unheated sauce pan, no problem, it's better than adding it to a pan that is too hot.

Saute the garlic slices at low/medium heat. Cook slowly. Take your time here and move the garlic around occasionally as if it were in a Chinese Wok. If the garlic burns you MUST start over again. Cook at low/medium heat, (more on the low side) until the garlic begins to look translucent, slightly brown is ok.

Add the tomato paste and turn off heat. Carefully (slowly) add the water, about 2-3 cups depending on how thick or thin you want your sauce. I prefer this particular sauce to be thin, so I go with about 3 cups of water here.

Stirring is crucial here. At low heat stir the sauce until smooth. Cover the pot/sauce pan and let simmer at low heat for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally and taste before removing from heat. Add more salt and/or pepper to taste if needed.

When you're happy with the taste of your sauce, remove from heat and keep covered. Start boiling your pasta water.

For a box of pasta (1 lb) you'll need a large pot with about 5 quarts of water. Before adding your water to the pot you can coat the bottom of your pot with a little oil applied with a paper towel. This can help prevent sticking.

Add a pinch of salt to the water. Get the water to a rolling boil at high heat then add your pasta, stir a few times to prevent sticking and return to boil. Lower the heat slightly to medium/high and cook until tender, but not too soft, (see below).

I have found that the instructions on the box of pasta, which says to cook the pasta for x amount of minutes is usually wrong, it's usually too long to cook pasta. So, use the cooking time on the box just as a guide and at about 2-3 minutes before the suggested cooking time, remove some pasta and taste test. Let a few strands of pasta cool in a plate and taste. "Al dente" is best. This means, not too soft. This takes experience and if it turns out a little too soft don't worry about it, it will still taste good.

When your pasta is done, drain it. Don't rinse. Just drain off the water and return it to the pot. You can add a little bit of olive oil to the pasta in the pot at this point and stir well. You can skip the addition of oil and just re-heat (if needed) your sauce until hot and add a couple of ladle fulls of your sauce to the pasta in the pot and stir.

Plate your pasta, add more sauce. Top with Locatelli or other grated (Romano or Parmesan) cheese.

*You can also add some toasted bread crumbs:
Take about 1/2 cup of bread crumbs (flavored or unflavored) and toast in a pan at medium heat while stirring, until bread crumbs become medium/dark brown. Sprinkle some of this over your pasta.

Optional:
Get a bottle of Merlot or Pinot Noir and a loaf of good Italian bread.
You can buy good wine that is made in south eastern Australia these days that is very inexpensive.
Try "the Little Penguin" Merlot. I'm in NY and they've been selling a lot of these Australian wines which are great considering the low price.

Coming soon: A tomato/meat sauce & how to open and drink wine.