Or “Simple, Romantic Italian Dinner”
Time to show off your chef skills and impress your date with this sexy, beautiful Italian meal! This recipe is Italian comfort food at its finest. Perfect for a date night and very easy to whip up. It’s the sort of meal you can leisurely make while chatting and drinking good red wine. It’s quite hearty and filling so I like to serve it with a lightly dressed simple salad of romaine, radicchio and cherry tomatoes. It would also be fantastic after a long day of skiing or some other physically exhausting activity where you crave carbs and protein to refuel.
**This post is also a travel story. Scroll down for the pasta recipe!**
The fragrant, rich, slightly spicy sauce clings to each flat strand of pappardelle, with chewy, salty bites of pancetta here and there. Seriously, this sauce feels like you’re wrapped up in the softest micro-plush blanket in front of a crackling fire in a cozy log cabin somewhere high in the Italian Alps on a crisp winter night. Ah, Italy take me back!
I made this dish last March on a long weekend getaway to Venice. Now if you’ve been to Venice, you’ll know that restaurants are expensive and extremely overpriced. It is hard to eat well on a budget in Venice and, to be honest, I’m not the type to eat fast food more than once on a trip. I want to experience the food of that land! But I cannot be spending 30 euros a meal for 4 days. A great way to savor local foods on a budget is to hit up the local food shops. I love browsing grocery stores and specialty shops when I’m visiting a different country and seeing what sort of goodies they have in store. Don’t worry, the boyfriend and I still enjoyed some meals out! However, we enjoyed our dinners in our beautiful Airbnb even more..
Lo Scoglione- Spaghetti ai frutti di mare al cartoccio cotti nel forno a legna.
This gorgeous plate of carbs wrapped in carbs was to die for. This luscious dish is from Eden Ristorante in Mira (just outside of Venice). By preparing some meals at home, there’s room in the budget for a delicious seafood feast!
I also packed us some sandwiches for lunch one day. Used freshly baked bread from our neighborhood bakery and flavorful cold cuts sliced by an adorably, wrinkled little Italian nonno who spoke zero English.They were very tasty and kept us energized for a full day of wandering through little alleyways and over hundreds of canals.
Seriously, every turn is picture perfect.
Unfortunately we couldn’t rest our feet as we ate eat since Venice has anti-picnicking laws! So if you go, kill that little daydream you have of picnics over the grand canal while gondolas float on by. While you’re at it, forget your fantasy of taking a gondola ride. They cost 80 euros per ride for half an hour! And they don’t even serenade you!
It is understandable, there are way too many tourists in Venice- the streets would be blocked by bodies if people were allowed to sit and eat. I was munching happily on the last bit of my sandwich when we came to the dazzling Piazza di San Marco.
Fascinated by the colorful buildings and captivating busyness of the square I momentarily held my sandwich a bit away from my face.
Out of nowhere, a massive seagull, bigger than my Westie pup, dive-bombed through the crowd and snatched the remains of my sandwich cleanly from my hold. This seagull was clearly a well-practiced veteran. I never saw a feather. My sandwich was gone in a split-second, leaving me stunned and freaked out thinking that some random person for whatever reason decided to smack the sandwich out of my hand. If it weren’t for the laughing witnesses I would’ve still believed it was a person- the smack was so heavy! I hope that seagull enjoyed his spuntino.
Okay, back to the soul warming pasta. This was my favorite dinner in Venice. After being out all day, it felt good to relax in our home with a plate of saucy carbs and many glasses of vino.
In this recipe, I used a jar of pre-made bolognese sauce. Normally I stay away from the jarred stuff, but after an exhausting day out I didn’t want to spend more time or energy making a bolognese. So this sauce gets some help from the store! I think the finely crumbled meat is an excellent texture complement to the soft, crumbly ricotta.
Ingredients:
Pappardelle or Tagliatelle (enough for two)
Can of Pomodorini (these are little whole cherry tomatoes)
Ricotta (about half a small container)
Pancetta, cubed (large handful)
Garlic (4 good sized cloves)
Olive oil
Onion (half a small one)
Small jar of bolognese sauce (or use your own meat sauce if you have some on hand)
Parmesan, finely grated or ground
Method:
Open a nice bottle of Italian red wine. I recommend a Sangiovese or Nero d’Avolo. These wines pair well with tomato dishes that err more on the salty side than meaty side. I think they really cut through the saltiness without overpowering other flavors. Pour yourself and your kitchen companion a glass.
Get a pot of water started for the pasta and throw in a good amount of salt. Your pasta water should always be salty like the sea!
While that’s going, swirl your wine, take a big ujjayi inhale through your nose and savor the dance of flavors as they make their way through your senses. Exhale and take a sip of your wine, letting it roll all over your tastebuds. Okay, now you’re ready to start prepping your ingredients.
If your pancetta isn’t cubed, get that done. They should be the size of a large pea or a small hazelnut. Dice the onion and roughly mince the garlic. I like a few small chunks of garlic in this sauce- the variation in size keeps it rustic. Crack open the jars and cans.
In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Once the oil is fragrant, add the onion. Season with a little salt and a good amount of freshly ground black pepper. Adjust the heat so the onions are doing a little shimmy but aren’t browning. They should be slowly turning yellow and translucent. After about a minute or two, add the pancetta. Once the pancetta is browned and crispy, add the garlic. Garlic burns quickly, so adjust the heat as needed and stir to prevent burn spots. After about a minute, the garlic should be a golden toasty color. Your kitchen should smell incredible.
Now don’t neglect that glass of vino!
Add in the pomodorini, sauce/juice and all. Season with a bit more salt and pepper. Give it a stir and reduce to a lively simmer.
Drop your pasta into the boiling water and add some more salt. After about a minute, give it a stir- this ensures that your noodles won’t stick together. Cook to al dente (taste to check).
While your pasta is cooking, add in the jarred bolognese.
When your pasta is almost al dente, grab a coffee mug and scoop out some of the starchy pasta water. Slowly add the water to your sauce (about 3 espresso shots worth) and let it reduce. I tend to up the heat a little here to make sure the sauce doesn’t get too watered down. Adding the starchy water to your sauce helps to marry the pasta and sauce. Stir in the ricotta until the sauce is nicely speckled with flecks of creamy white. Add as much or as little as you like. Keep the mug of starchy water handy in case you need more water later.
When your pasta is done, use tongs to transfer the noodles into the pan of sauce. Toss to coat evenly.
When serving, use the tongs to plate the pasta. If you’re feelin’ fancy, grab and twirl the pasta around the tongs, lift and transfer to a plate. While setting down the pasta, it also helps to spin the plate as the pasta slides off the tongs. This will create a nice little nest on the plate. Or just gently slop it down like I did. Pour extra sauce over top. Finish with some freshly cracked black pepper and some finely grated or powdered Parmesan if desired.
For the salad: Chop up some romaine and radicchio. Add vertically sliced cherry tomatoes. Toss with a vinaigrette of Extra-Virgin olive oil, vinegar (balsamic or wine), salt and pepper.
