Greedy Friends #1: Food, forgetting and remembering pasta bake
by Dolores Carbonari
Hello all,
I am so delighted that Dolly is kicking off Crust’s Greedy Friend’s column. I hope you enjoy her writing and recipes - both blindingly full of heart.
And come out of the woodwork, Greedy Friends! Let me know if you’d like to write something too!
Love from Eggsand
Food, forgetting and remembering pasta bake
I come from big families, and some of us united for my mum’s 60th birthday party. It was a big bash of drinking and dancing and and and... and the next day, a friend came over for dinner. When we were so rat-arsed hungover. There wasn’t much food in, and my mum apologetically placed a cheese & tuna pasta bake on the table with our hair-of-the-dogs. As is the way with my parents (lol) the topic soon got on to death. I’ve a real anxiety about death, about losing my loved ones, and think about it most of the day, every day. So when it comes up in conversation, external to the running transcript in my head, it freaks me out even more.
But I’m trying to get better at hard conversations, and this was a good one to stick out. We discussed when parents welcome someone new into their life, into the lives of their family, soon after the death of their previous partner. We discussed trying to overcome disappointment at your [insert relative here] moving on with someone else and still mourning their losses. Our guest said some truly beautiful things about letting people live their lives and accepting their needs. About the vitality of such choices, no matter how sorely we feel them. We also remembered the passing of my aunt a year ago, and her son’s generosity in welcoming his dad’s newfound happiness. My cousin’s acceptance of this change, still standing in all his glorious youth and fresh grief, caught my breath.
Throughout this, we were eating forkfuls of tuna-cheese pasta bake out of bowls, adding a little more salt and pepper as we went. More prosecco was poured and more pasta spooned out. My eyes welled up over and over during this meal, and I felt choked up on food and panic. But this pasta is what my mum has made my whole life, in times of needing quick comfort. We didn’t have much in, we needed ease, we had a guest, we needed to comfort a hangover. This pasta is so nostalgic and whilst we spoke about people we have lost and moving on and how brief it all really is, this food brought me back in time and suddenly everything was looped.
I went to the bathroom to cry, feeling full and sad and grateful. Cos there’s comfort in hard things, there’s generosity in those who’ve lost the most, and there’s a meal in pasta, tuna, and cheese.
I doubt you need a recipe for this, but just in case:
Mum’s tuna cheese pasta bake:
NB: These recipes are more eating suggestions than anything else. Mostly about combos and ratios of ingredients. Obvs I am no real-time ratatouille chef, so have included links to professionally written recipes below with proper job measurements etc.
This serves... however hungry you are…. 2 hungry horses, 4 after school cats. 8 peckish mice?
Pack of small-medium pasta c.500g (macaroni, or casarecci (short twists), small conchiglie (shells), farfalle (pasta bows), rigatoni... whatever you have tbh. Like heavenly Eggsand, I’m not a fan of penne. No thank you madame!
Flour ( 1 / 2 tbsps)
Milk (500-600ml)
Butter (50g +)
Cheese (cheddar preferably) grated (250g +)
Tuna (however many cans you have)
Vegetable of choice: peas, broccoli, sweetcorn (a few handfuls of this)
Garlic
Black pepper
Before you start: heat up your oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.
1) THE PASTA: Boil a large pan with water (you don’t need super starchy water for this sauce, thanks to the flour, fat, and milk, so use a bigger pan for better, more even pasta cooking) adding salt “so it’s like the sea” once the water is properly bubbling. Add pasta and cook al dente to the instructions, taking off a minute or so as the pasta will cook some more in the oven with sauce. Drain and leave on the side once done.
2) THE SAUCE: Melt 50 g / a few tbsps butter in a pan, and add in equal amount of plain flour.
Cook for a minute then add a good slosh of milk, about 500ml. See how you go, you can always add more (but not take away, as my mum says!) and keep stirring. Whisk if poss. Remove the pan from the heat, and add as much cheese as your heart desires. Add a good handful of grated cheddar and stir til melted.
3) COMBINE: Get an oven proof dish and add your pasta and sauce, tuna and vegetable (you can add them frozen although broccoli will take longer to cook so if using then chop up small or par-boil). Stir and add more grated cheese on top and a little pepper.
4) COOK: Apart from any frozen veg, your ingredients are all cooked so this is more about visual preference. To get a good crust, cook for about 10-15 until the top is a golden brown.
This is how my mum makes it - zhuzh up as you like, with chilli, more veg, make it vegan with no tuna and non-dairy substitutes for the butter cheese and milk (oat milk would work nicely).
& here is a profesh recipe
Now, as much as I love this dish, I can’t mention pasta bake without including this trio - a journey from sauce in 3 ways. Growing up, despite my honking italian name, lots of the food we ate at home would make Eataly gasp. Other times it was perfectly authentic. Here are three suggestions that avoid wasting food and make the most of cucina povera. And the best part is, each leftover is better than the one before. Eat up, greedy grubs!
STEP ONE: Pasta sauce (or ragu bébé!)
A version of this sauce is being made at least once a week by my family. This is very much a recipe to tweak to personal taste, and you can use this sauce in so many ways. Like any family sauce, it has regional and inherited tastes that shape it. You could start with a more traditional soffrito (onion, carrot, celery) if you like, we often don’t bother.
Sausages (a pack 6-10), or pork mince, or a big tube of sausage meat
One large white/yellow onion
4 cloves of garlic
Tube of tomato purée
2 tins of chopped tomatoes, or equal amount of passata
Olive oil
Red wine
Cinnamon
Bay leaves (1-3)
Fennel seeds
Chilli flakes
Salt and pepper
Any other herbs: mixed italian, dried basil, dried thyme, dried oregano
Sugar or honey
A small knob of unsalted butter
1) CHOP your onion (diced), your garlic cloves (fairly finely) and set aside so they’re ready
2) FRY off your pork meat of choice in some olive oil. With sausage, squeeze the meat out of its skins and break up with a spoon or scissors until it crumbles in the pan as it cooks. With mince, cook as normal also breaking up with a spoon. Cooking your meat before your onion/ garlic/soffrito means you can cook it on a higher temp and get it nicely browned and textured, before turning it back down to medium and adding your onions and garlic to soften. Then they also get to cook up in that porky fat. If you’ve cooked your meat pretty crispy, then take it out before cooking the onion and co, and add back in once they’re done to avoid overcooking.
3) HERBS & SPICES: Add your fennel seeds early on. Feel free to bash them up, but adding them in early enough will give them time to release flavour. They are a wonderful flavour with pork, and very common in the south of Italy and Sicily. Add in your other herbs and spices now to help them bloom in the fat, I like a good pinch or two of each of them, including chilli flakes, cinnamon, and I usually like a little oregano. Add salt and pepper too.
4) PURÉE & WINE: Add a good squeeze of purée (between half a tube to the whole thing) and cook off until it’s turned a much darker brownish colour. Then add a good slosh of wine, around a glass of port also nice) preferably red but anything works. It helps to deglaze the meaty pan and add some sugars and acid. Allow this to gently bubble until it’s reduced and the smell of booze has died down.
5) TOMATOES/PASSATA: once you have all your other ingredients in, add your cans of tinned tomatoes or passata. Passata is easier if you want a smoother sauce and I use if I need to make this sauce a little faster as the sugars are already broken up making for a sweeter slightly richer flavour with less cooking time than most tinned/chopped tomatoes need. Add a bay leaf or two.
6) LEAVE IT: for as long as you can, this will help the flavours settle and deepen.
7) TASTE: pad back to the pot whenever you like for little tastes (hehe) and add what is lacking. Leave adding sugar right to the last minute, as sugars from other ingredients will be released as they cook so you might not need it.
8) FINISH IT: with butter. This is so optional, but makes for a very rich and silky sauce. Just a knob stirred in at the end.
“Is it lacking something?” my Dad would ask, as he let me help him make this sauce as a child. I felt like a right witch, plucking things from the cupboard to add and taste and add and taste to the sauce until it was just baby bear right.
Too spicy? Add fat (a little butter or oil) / sugar or honey / acid (squeeze of lemon, drop of any vinegar)
Too sweet? More salt! especially something deep like a stock cube
Too watery? Cook down for longer, raising the temp so it bubbles a little
Too acidic? Add more fat (butter or oil)
Too boring, can’t put your finger on it? Add a little of everything. A mini slurry of acid + sugar in equal parts, and a little fat, a few more herbs will usually do the trick.
Most of all - the longer you leave it, the better it tastes. Even the most boring or fucked up sauce.
A recipe for a ragu that would also work well is this: “Genaro’s Classic Italian Ragu Bolognese” Forza, Genaro!
STEP TWO - you choose…
Meal 1: PASTA (BAKE)
So, the first suggestion is to boil up any pasta of your choice, from something long like spaghetti or tagliatelle to something stocky like rigatoni or farfalle, the choice is yours. Add a little more cheese and seasoning on top, and some fresh parsley to compliment the pork.
Or you can transform it into another pasta bake, in the same way as the tuna-cheese just mix your completed sauce to your cooked pasta, place in an oven-proof dish and top with cheese. This is nice with mozzarella and any pecorino or parmesan over the top. Mwah!
Meal 1b:
Ok this is an extra greedy side 4th dish, REFRY YOUR PASTA. Look away now Gwyneth Paltrow, but take your pasta and heat up any pan with some fat (olive oil or butter both are nice) and put your leftover sauce pasta in. The ultimate step is adding MORE cheese, because this grills/fries off for a very sweet chewable flavour. God it’s so good. Unbutton your trews.
Official meal 2: a fancier one… ARANCINI
This is a good way to use up a little of the meat sauce, and when my mum makes these at Easter they are a combo of a leftover sauce and leftover risotto. We tend to use plainer risotto, with a little saffron, but I’m sure you could play around - perhaps with Eggsand’s squash risotto? You just need to dry it out a little to make it tacky and mouldable.
Arancini mean little oranges, and they’re just fucking great. Here’s how my mum suggests to make them:
Another recipe to try on for size: https://www.christinascucina.com/arancini-di-riso-sicilian-italian- rice-balls/
These are great to eat outside, on a white table cloth, with a little red sauce and some peppery rocket salad. But do what you want, as long as you eat them with your hands.
Here’s how my mum suggests to make them:
Meal 3: The show stopper: TOASTIE
Ok this dish is really made by a pocket toaster. Thank god my mum and dad have the same one from when we were baby mice, but you could deffo make this in any other way you do a toastie or just loaded on top of an open sandwich. I don’t really need to tell you what to do, follow your tum.
Take any leftover meat sauce, and pile onto your bread of choice. Preferably something white soft and pappy, like kingsmill extra thick white loaf. Presliced, come on! Mayo or butter or marg are good to spread on all sides of your slices of bread, if you are making a toasty by machine or pan. Add your sauce, some cheddar cheese, and your other slice (or not!). Preferably eat with a cold glass of nesquik (banana, thank you) and some tv.
Finally, cannot talk about food and family without these 2 recommendations:
1) Little Oink, Exeter: my big sister Olivia Carbonari is head chef @ Little oink, Exeter: Delicious food, lovely vibe.
2) La Porchetta Pollo, Soho: Cheap drinks, pig decor, great bellied old italian men.
Bisoux!
This was such a beautiful read ❤️