Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times (38 page)

• Add about 1 teaspoon minced garlic to the butter or oil, just before the tomatoes. Garnish with minced fresh parsley instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

• Add about 1 tablespoon minced shallot to the butter or oil. Cook the tomatoes with a couple of branches of basil, remove them before serving, and stir about ½ cup or more roughly chopped basil leaves into the pasta.

• Toss the pasta with about 1 cup cubed (½ inch or less) mozzarella, preferably fresh.

• Add hot red pepper flakes to taste along with the tomatoes.

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

TIME: 30 MINUTES

FEW THINGS ARE
simpler than a quick tomato sauce over pasta, but as an unending diet it can become somewhat tiresome. Here it’s completely jazzed by the addition of a hefty amount of garlic and a few anchovies. The transformation is as easy as it is remarkable. Canned anchovies—packed in olive oil—are the easiest to use here. Salted anchovies, if you have them, are fine also, but you must mince them first (after cleaning them, of course, which you do under running water, stripping the meat from the skeleton).

1.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put the olive oil in a deep skillet and turn the heat to medium. A minute later, add the garlic and the anchovies. When the garlic sizzles and the anchovies break up, add the tomatoes.

2.
Turn the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture becomes saucy, about 15 minutes.

3.
Cook the pasta until it is tender but firm. Season the sauce to taste and serve over the linguine.

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

TIME: 30 MINUTES

THIS IS A
technique popular in Liguria—the Italian Riviera—in which all of the clam liquid is used as part of the sauce, but without much effort. The result is delicious pasta in a little rich, thick sauce—along with a pile of clams.

Use the smallest clams you can find; cockles are fine, too. Figure eight to twelve littlenecks or twenty-four cockles per person. Wash and scrub the clamshells very well, as they will cook in the sauce and any un-removed sand will find its way into your mouth. Discard any open or cracked clams before cooking; those that remain shut after cooking may be opened with a knife.

1.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Meanwhile, put 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large, deep skillet that can later be covered and turn the heat to high. A minute later, add the clams, reduce the heat to medium-high, give the pan a shake, and cover. Continue to cook the clams, shaking the pan occasionally, until they begin to open, as little as 5 minutes later. Add the garlic and cook until most of the clams are open.

2.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta. When it is nearly tender, remove a cup of its cooking water and drain. When the clams are ready, add the pasta and the tomatoes to the skillet and cook, tossing frequently, until the pasta is tender and hot; add some of the pasta-cooking water if the mixture is too dry.

3.
Add the remaining olive oil and taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary; garnish with the parsley and serve.

VARIATION

White Pasta with Clams

Omit the tomatoes and substitute about ¾ cup dry white wine, adding it to the clams about a minute before the pasta.

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

TIME: 30 MINUTES

MOST OF US
associate pasta and sausage with a dense, heavy tomato sauce, the kind that is so Italian-American it is just about indigenous. Yet sausage can contribute to a relatively light, almost delicate pasta sauce, especially if it is used in small amounts. In fact, sausage is the ideal meat to use in a quick pasta sauce, because it is preseasoned and cooks almost instantly.

1.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put the butter in a medium skillet over medium-low heat. As it melts, crumble the sausage meat into it, making the bits quite small, ½ inch or less in size. Add ½ cup of water and adjust the heat so that the mixture simmers gently.

2.
Cook the pasta until it is tender but not at all mushy. Reserve about ½ cup of the pasta-cooking water.

3.
Drain the pasta and dress with the sauce, adding some of the reserved cooking liquid if necessary. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary. Toss with the Parmigiano-Reggiano and serve.

VARIATIONS

White Pasta with Sausage and Onions

Before adding the sausage, gently cook about 1 cup minced onion in the butter until it is translucent. Proceed as directed.

Red Pasta with Sausage

Still far lighter than the pasta with sausage you’re expecting. Core, cut up, seed, and drain 5 to 6 plum tomatoes; they may be fresh or canned. Add them to the sauce along with the sausage.

• Add about 1 teaspoon minced garlic or a couple of tablespoons minced shallot to the butter as it melts.

• Toss in a handful of chopped fresh parsley or basil at the last moment or add about 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or minced fresh sage along with the sausage.

• Use red wine as the cooking liquid; its astringency offsets the sweet richness of butter and meat beautifully.

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

TIME: 30 MINUTES

TRUE RAGU IS
a magnificent pasta sauce, a slow-simmered blend of meat, tomatoes, and milk. The real thing takes hours, for the meat must become tender and contribute its silkiness to the sauce, the tomatoes must dissolve, and the milk must pull the whole thing together. But a reasonable approximation of ragu can be produced using ground beef or pork or, even better, prepared Italian sausage.

1.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put the oil in a 10-inch skillet and turn the heat to medium; a minute later, add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until it softens, about 5 minutes. Add the sausage in bits and turn the heat to medium-high; cook, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is nicely browned, 5 to 10 minutes.

2.
Add the milk and tomato paste, along with some salt and pepper; stir to blend and simmer for about 5 minutes, or until thick but not dry. Keep it warm if necessary and, if it becomes too thick, add a little more milk, water, or chicken stock.

3.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta until tender but not mushy. Drain it and toss with the sauce and about half the Parmigiano-Reggiano. Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve, passing the remaining Parmigiano-Reggiano

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

TIME: 30 MINUTES

CHESTNUTS AND DRIED MUSHROOMS
have a wonderful affinity for each other. Their unusual flavors and textures seem distantly related; they are both meaty and complex, chewy but neither tough nor crunchy. With shallots and plenty of black pepper for bite, the combination makes a great pasta sauce.

And though chestnuts are a pain in the neck (the fingers, actually) to peel, the good news is that their complex, fragrant flavor is so powerfully distinctive that just a few can have an enormous impact on a dish. So although it may take thirty seconds to a minute to process a single chestnut, if you need only a dozen or so for a dish, the work amounts to about ten minutes. And in a creation like this one, the time is well worth the effort.

1.
Cut a ring around each chestnut, then put them in boiling water to cover and cook for 3 minutes. Remove them from the water, a few at a time, and peel while still hot. Meanwhile, soak the mushrooms in about 1½ cups of very hot water.

2.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put half the butter or oil in a skillet, turn the heat to medium-high, and, a minute later, add the shallot. Sprinkle lightly with salt and cook, stirring, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Chop the chestnuts into ½- to ¼-inch chunks, then measure about 1 cup. Add them to the skillet along with a little more salt.

3.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chestnuts deepen in color, about 5 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from their soaking liquid; reserve and strain the liquid. Chop the mushrooms and add them to the skillet; cook, stirring, for a minute or two, then add the strained mushroom-soaking liquid. Turn the heat to low and season to taste with salt and lots of black pepper.

4.
Cook the pasta until tender but not mushy. If the sauce is too thick, add a little of the pasta-cooking water to it when the pasta is nearly done. Stir in the remaining butter or oil, then drain the pasta and dress with the sauce. Serve immediately.

VARIATIONS

• Add a few fresh thyme sprigs along with the shallot. Remove before serving and sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves as a garnish.

• Add diced (¼ inch or less) zucchini; peeled, seeded, and diced tomato; or red bell pepper—no more than a cup total—along with the chestnuts.

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

TIME: AT LEAST 1 HOUR

ONE OF MY
favorite elaborations on a simple tomato sauce is the recipe for pasta with meaty bones. It requires considerably more time but almost no extra effort, and it boasts the wonderful depth of flavor, silken texture, and satisfying chewiness of slow-cooked meat. Southern Italian in origin, it begins with bony meat (or meaty bones) and requires lengthy simmering. Otherwise, it’s little different from basic tomato sauce.

Whatever you use, the idea remains constant: meat is a supporting player, not the star, so an eight- to twelve-ounce piece of veal shank, for example, provides enough meat, marrow, and gelatin to create a luxuriously rich sauce. Just cook until the meat falls off the bone, then chop it and return it to the sauce along with any marrow.

This sauce is rich enough without grated cheese; a better garnish is a large handful of coarsely chopped parsley or basil. Either freshens the sauce while adding color and flavor.