Pasta with Marinara Sauce: Pure Simple Easy—and Perhaps the Best

As I write this, I’m eating supper, a second-night serving of fettuccine marinara, my favorite pasta sauce.
What is “marinara” anyway? It’s supposed to mean “of the sea,” but that only extends to its having been born in Naples, which is on the Bay of Naples.
In “Bugialli on Pasta,” the brilliant Florentine chef and cooking teacher Giuliano Bugialli writes, “Fundamentally, alla marinara simply means to add tomatoes to the basic olive oil and garlic, aglio e olio. This must have originated sometime in the nineteenth century, when ripe tomatoes came to play a dominant role in Neapolitan cooking…”
When Susan Lescher and I were sharing a New England kitchen, we often made this sauce. And so I have continued to make it for myself and a friend—or myself one night and myself the next.
There are only three essential ingredients: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes. There is a goodly amount of olive oil and this gives the sauce unctuousness. Don’t scrimp on it.
But. And.
Bugialli adds parsley…and I sneak in rosemary. But there is no real need for herbery. The Italian canned tomatoes I use (Lola) come with big thick leaves of basil, but basil isn’t essential.
Bugialli purees the tomatoes at the end. Feel free to do that, but I prefer texture—and I save a step.
This is a versatile base. Just before serving, Susan and I often stirred in a handful of pitted kalamata olives— gorgeous. Last night I added sliced and sautéed mushrooms. Capers are delicious, too.
When I was newly married, I was sent a hand-written recipe from a friend of my mother’s, Clemence Jandrey, the wife of Fritz (Frederick W.) Jandrey, who had been the U.S. Vice Counsel in Naples just before World War II. Clem’s recipe was for Neapolitan Marinara Sauce and across the top she wrote, "The Best!" All it was was a tin of plum tomatoes simmered till thick. Being in my twenties and teaching myself to cook, I found the idea absurd…how could this be anything but a lazy cook’s trick? I don’t think I even bothered to try it. Ah, the arrogance of the young. It amuses me that I am now the age Clem was when she sent me the recipe. What she knew that I did not was that long slow simmering of tomatoes sweetens and refines their flavor. I wish I could tell Clem that I've learned this since…
As for the shape of the pasta, Bugialli calls for vermicelli or perciatelli (spaghetti-like with a hole in the center). He notes, “Medium-thick, long pastas can be substituted one for another if you can’t find the specific one.”
As for portion size, my comfort-level serving is 2-1/2 ounces. I’ve heard the word “trencherman” used for the traditional 4-ounce serving.
I do like more sauce on my pasta than is customary for most Italians, so the amounts I’ll give serve half of what is traditional in Italy.
Which pasta brand is considered best? Not long ago I asked that question of my friend and mentor, Russ Parsons, and he reminded me of a story he wrote for the Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2002. The Times test kitchen cooked eight artisanal and three standard pastas in two-ounce batches, lightly dressed each with olive oil. Russ wrote, ‘When the brands were revealed, both of our favorites were made by Latini—the regular red-box brand and the Senatore Cappelli type made from an heirloom wheat variety. That Latini fared so well was no shock; it's the dried pasta of choice for most of the great Italian restaurants in this country…While the Latini pastas were the best in our tasting, we also liked the spaghetti from Rustichella d'Abruzzo, another artisanal Italian product, as well as from La Molisana and Barilla, Italian brands made in the U.S.”
Finally, Susan taught me to combine the sauce with the pasta and WAIT a few minutes to let the paste absorb the sauce, let the two marry. A subtle but crucial step.
You can make this much sauce to coat a pound of pasta in the Italian style, or double or triple the recipe for more pasta still. It could not be simpler.
PASTA ALLA MARINARA AFTER BUGIALLI—2 to 3 servings
½ cup fruity olive oil
6 to 8 large cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped (although no harm done if you leave them whole)
20 large sprigs Italian parsley, leaves only, coarsely chopped, optional
Large sprig of fresh rosemary, chopped, optional
1 pound 12 ounce can of peeled whole plum tomatoes*, Italian, with basil leaves if possible
1 tablespoon coarse salt
8 ounces dried pasta, any shape, preferably Italian
Freshly ground pepper
Optional additions: generous ½ cup pitted kalamata olives…OR 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced and sautéed till golden…OR ¼ cup chopped Italian parsley leaves…OR ½ to ¾ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
In a large heavy skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil, then add the garlic (and parsley and rosemary). Stir for a couple of minutes, then add the tomatoes. Chop up the tomatoes with the edge of a cooking spoon into smallish pieces. You’ll want it to simmer for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce is finished when thickened to the consistency you desire. Stir in added ingredients if you like to heat them up. Remove from the heat, cover, and wait for the pasta.
While the sauce simmers, set a large pot with at least 3 quarts cold water over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. When the water boils, stir in 1 tablespoon coarse salt, add the pasta, cover until the water returns to a boil, then boil uncovered, stirring often to keep pieces from sticking.
Generally, spaghettini cooks in 5 minutes, trenette in 6 to 7 minutes, and penne in 7 to 8 minutes, thicker cuts of pasta can take 9 to 12 minutes. Start tasting 2 minutes before the expected time. When a piece tests tender with just a tad of chewiness—past being gritty at the center—al dente, turn into a colander.
Shake the colander then turn the pasta into the sauce pan, grind over pepper to taste, and stir until blended. Cover and let the paste soak up the sauce for a few minutes. Serve in heated soup plates and pass freshly grated cheese.
Marinara sauce can certainly be prepared a day in advance and reheated.
NB: When I reheat this for myself the second serving, I moisten it with a thread of olive oil before I cover and zap.
*Of course you can buy canned tomatoes already chopped, but I’ve found the pieces tend to be mushier than the flesh of whole tomatoes, and if you chop them up yourself, you can suit your own esthetic.

Have You Made A Frittata For Supper Lately?

When I was a little girl living with my parents in The Garden of Allah in Hollywood, now and then we received postcards from my mother’s old friend, MFK Fisher, who was living amongst boulders and rattlesnakes in Hemet, a hundred miles to the east. The card—postage was a penny—was always a recipe in MF’s round blue-ink script, and the titles were fascinating. The two I particularly remember are “Cookies of Otamela” (so very MF, a made-up Spanish word for oatmeal) and "Frittata." To my nine year-old’s ear, “Frittata” was mellifluous—tintinnabulation—and I longed to taste it. I can’t remember my mother making a frittata, but when I was married and Gene and I went to visit MF, she made them for us often.
Dissolve through many years…I don’t think I made frittatas for my children, it’s not a children’s dish…children like to know what they’re eating. I remember Dinah when I was testing recipes: “What is this, Mommy?” “It’s veal, dear.” “I know, but what was it?”
Hey. What is a frittata, anyway?
It is a serene—not hustled about—Italian variation of a French omelette…you can count on the Italians to do something beautiful that’s easygoing.
More precisely, a frittata is cooled cooked vegetables/ cheese/meat mixed with beaten eggs, poured into a hot buttered skillet, cooked gently until the eggs are set on the bottom, then—here’s the drama and the fun—coaxed out of the pan, flipped over, then slipped back into the skillet to finish cooking.
Hunh? Easy you say? Yes.
The flipping over part can be sidestepped by finishing under the broiler.
Also, you can miss when you flip and the world doesn’t come to an end. Not long ago, I was making a frittata for six in an enormous skillet on a friend’s cooktop…flipped it over onto a big platter—so far so good—only the platter slipped and half the damn frittata went splatting all over the cooktop. My friend, a meticulous housekeeper, was horrified but I calmly picked up cooked chunks and pieces, plunked them onto the serving platter, finished cooking what was left, and it all tasted fine—I mean, I was cooking for FRIENDS, for pity’s sake. Alas, my hostess was not happy with her eggy stove but I’m afraid even though I was mortified for the mess, I thought it was pretty funny…
Above all, the great thing about this dish is that you don’t need to worry about rules or proportions. Use what you like and what you have on hand.
Now here I am on my own and I probably make a frittata a week. The reason? It’s easy, delicious, practical, cheap. Nourishing. Lean.
Tonight, watching the Dodgers—I hope—cream the Phillies, I made a frittata for my supper…
What I did was slice half a box of mushrooms and sauté them in a tad of butter till tender while nuking a chunk of frozen chopped spinach till cooked…poured myself a glass of my Spanish red wine while, in another skillet, I cut up a small onion and sauteed it in a thread of olive oil till sweet and golden…added minced garlic (have you discovered the jar that has minced garlic at the ready, what a treat!) at the end. Turned mushrooms, spinach, onion into a shallow dish, cut in a couple of ounces of mozzarella in small pieces to melt, mixed it all up, and let cool.
Watched the game, sipped my wine.
I beat up two eggs and stirred them into the cooled veggies. Salted and peppered (could have added dill weed or fresh parsley but didn’t bother). Heated a tablespoon of butter in the non-stick onion-cooking skillet over medium-high heat, poured in the mix, shook the skillet to settle the vegetables. Cooked until the sides looked set and the surface looked close to set—hard to give you time, because every mixture, every skillet, every burner is different, but it’s generally 4 to 8 minutes. Then I used a non-stick spatula to free up the bottom, set a big plate on top, and flipped it over. Set the skillet back on the heat, swooshed it over with another spoonful of unsalted butter, slid in the frittata—uncooked side down. Cooked it another few minutes till, when I shook the pan, the whole thing moved. Slid it onto a plate and sat and finished watching the game.
We just lost to the Phillies. Bummer. They lead the series 3 to 1. I called my formerly cherished Philadelphia-born friend Nan Wollman and told her that it’s over between us.
But it was a good and simple dinner. There was more than enough for me…I wish MF were around to share it.

Jacques Pepin's Magic Wand

I first heard the name, Jacques Pepin, from my mentor, Helen McCully, Food and Wine editor of “House Beautiful” magazine, a lifetime ago. Helen told me she had met a remarkable young chef from France and she became his mentor as well, handing him around New York’s culinary establishment. They collaborated on a cookbook, “The Other Half of the Egg, Or, 180 Ways to Use Up Extra Yolks or Whites” (1967). I bought Pepin’s books as they came along—his style suits me to a T. His roast Chicken with Cognac in “A French Chef Cooks At Home,” 1975, was where I learned to roast chicken at high heat--400 degrees—15 minutes on one side, 15 minutes on the other side, 15 to 20 minutes breast up. (How young he looks on the cover!) Although I was writing cookbooks by then, I immersed myself in Pepin’s large-format-books-with-great-photographs, “La Technique” (1978) and “La Methode” (1979), soaking up the fine points.
Cut to a couple of weeks ago when I was on my hands and knees cleaning my apartment’s carpet. I turned on the television to cheer me up, it was set on PBS, and there was Pepin making squash soup. When the chunks of squash and its seasonings were tender in the saucepan, Pepin stuck this sort of fat wand into the pot, I heard a brief whirring sound, and the camera panned down to show a smooth golden puree. Lordy. I had an immersion blender once but it was useless, gave it away…
I looked up the wand on amazon and sent for it. Took it with me on my visit to the mountain. Fitted the wand into one of its cups (it comes with several bells and whistles) with avocado and onion and had guacamole in the flicker of an eyelash. Few nights ago, I minced four shallots just as quickly. Wow. Last night, I cooked a potful of spinach, stalks and leaves, they looked so unpromising, but I stuck in the wand, pushed the button. Plush emerald puree!
Now I must confess I am a gizmo girl. It runs in the family. When Henry Ford sent out his first automobiles, my father’s father in Chicago took the engine apart then put it back together. My father collected gizmos almost as passionately as books.
I didn’t realize one of Pepin’s sponsors is Cuisinart, but I must say ever since a friend told me about the new invention called a food processor, I’ve never been disappointed by Cuisinart. This, too, is an exceptionally useful kitchen tool—particularly if you’re cooking for just one or two. It not only purees and chops, but there’s a whisk as well—I whipped cream in a twinkling. And clean-up is much faster and easier than with a food processor—rinse, rinse, shake dry. I'm pleased my splurging turned out not to be an extravagance but money well spent. I regard the Smart Stick Hand Blender with Whisk and Chopper Attachments a bargain—$47.50 from amazon.
Just thought you’d like to know.
Now thank goodness my rug is clean so I can stay away from Pepin and temptation…
At least for a while.

Café Aroma’s Melt-in-Your-Mouth Best-You've-Ever-Eaten Scones--Revisited

After four days I ran out of scones, and niggled by the thought that perhaps they might be baked to advantage at a higher temp, I made them again this morning. With all due respect to Frank Ferro's method, I must say these scones that were baked hotter rose higher, were even lighter (although not so crumbly), outsides were crisper and the tops were an appealing nut brown.
While I was at it, I added a tad more butter and fruit, and, lacking fresh blueberries, used frozen wild blueberries. Lovely and a big saving.
Btw, it took my apartment-kitchen oven 45 minutes to heat but less than 15 minutes to prepare the recipe.
I do urge you to try these scones!

ST’s Café Aroma-Inspired Scones—makes 12
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cool but not cold (or 5 tablespoons, if using 36% cream)
1/2 cup Zante dried currants or fresh or frozen blueberries or cranberries (add frozen fruit without thawing)
1 large egg (1/4 cup)
1-1/4 cups heavy cream, preferably 40% butterfat
About 2 tablespoons sugar for the tops
Heat the oven to 425 degrees, place the rack in the center, and use a baking stone if you have one. Line a 14- by 16-inch baking sheet (or 2 smaller sheets) with parchment paper. Sift (or shake through a big sieve) flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a 2-quart mixing bowl—if using kosher salt, stir it into the cream instead.
Cut the butter in small thin chips over the bowl. With your fingertips, lightly rub butter and flour together until the butter is in petite-pea-sized chunks. In a pint or quart measuring pitcher, beat the egg until yolk and white are blended, then beat in the cream. You'll need 1-1/4 cups egg/cream mixture, so pour the excess into a small bowl (it will be for glaze). Drizzle the 1-1/4 cups over the flour and use a fork to quickly blend in—about 12 strokes. Add the fruit--if using currants, crumble to separate--and lightly quickly mix in.
Use a 3-tablespoon ice cream scoop or big spoon to set 12 rounded portions an inch apart on the baking sheet. When the oven has reached 425 degrees, brush each mound all over with the reserved egg/cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until light brown, about 15 minutes. Cool on a rack then store in a tightly closed jar in the refrigerator. Warm in the toaster oven about 4 minutes before serving.

A Favorite Delicious Fast Easy Nourishing Cheap Hot Supper from Long Ago

Enough salad for supper. Tonight, being OCTOBER! (who can believe it?) I wanted something hot.
When I was a student in Paris living in a corner room of Mme. Galetti’s apartment—40 rue des Ecoles—my pension included breakfast each morning (big bowl of coffee and all I could eat of bread fresh from the corner baker slathered with sweet butter and preserves, usually sour cherry) and lunches. Dinners were mine to roust up and usually I ended up sitting on my bed reading while eating a slab of open-face sandwich, also from the corner baker.
Occasionally of a Sunday afternoon, Madame would notice me lollygagging about, take pity on me, and invite me to join her and Monsieur for supper. It was at Madame’s table that I discovered Eggs Florentine. Only this dear plump middle-aged Belgian lady, forced to take in students to supplement her husband’s income from baking palmiers in the back room, would never put a fancy name to what she cooked. It was simply poached eggs on spinach.
I thought it a sublime combination.
I have made it a hundred hundred times in the fifty-five years since. Tonight, for example. No recipe needed--and it’s way easier than the dish Madame prepared, as she did not have spinach already blanched and chopped, much less a microwave oven.
What I do for just me or for half a dozen people is cook frozen chopped spinach according to package directions (yes of course I could use fresh), stirring in a mort of sweet butter after it’s cooked. Spinach with plenty of butter is spinach lifted to its highest power.
At the same time, I bring a little saucepan of water to the boil while slicing my loaf of bread then toasting it (olive bread tonight). Then I grate or cut in slivers a tasty cheese on hand…tonight I had a special teleme jack, but any cheese that is not too dominant is fine. You want not to overwhelm spinach’s intriguing and complex flavor.
When the water is boiling, I drop in an egg per serving (sure, you can do two)…time 3 minutes’ simmering (easy does it). I lightly butter the toast, set it on a plate and cover it with spinach, then use a slotted spoon to lift out the perfectly poached egg and lay it on the spinach. Sprinkle or strew over the cheese, season with a little salt and fresh-ground pepper, and that’s it.
Ah, Mme. Galetti, I wish you knew how pleasures of your table have endured in my life...