Home cookery: Italian version

This is basic. Day to day Italian home cooking is not about recipes. It’s about what’s available. No two days will likely be anything like each other. Just like in your house.

In that frying pan are:
1 leftover raw sausage
2 cloves of sliced garlic
4 inches of leftover leek, sliced
10 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
a pinch of crushed red chili pepper
extra virgin olive oil, about 3 tablespoons of it
salt to taste

That’s what was in my kitchen yesterday, every bit of it left over from some other meal except the garlic which is always around.

In the kitchen freezer was also a small packet of fresh lasagne pasta, leftover from Easter. I thawed them a bit then used a knife to cut them into 2 cm / 3/4″ wide strips. I tossed those into boiling salted water.

It doesn’t take long to boil fresh pasta. Freezing it dries it a bit, so it takes longer than if you’d just made it, but it’s the difference between one minute and two, once the water boils again.

The things in the frying pan cook while the pasta water comes to a boil, then once the pasta is in I add a ladle or two of pasta water to the frying pan. The tomatoes will actually taste better if you add them just before the pasta water, but that doesn’t photograph so well.

When the pasta is done but quite chewy, drain it and add to the frying pan, tossing around a bit. Then add some cheese you grated before and toss some more. It will look like this before you toss it.

If I lived in a different place, those ingredients would be different. If I lived near the sea there might be a handful of shrimps instead of a sausage. If it were summer there might be some vegetables that were dropped off by a friend with a garden. If it’s Monday the ingredients may be somewhat richer because they are left from Sunday. If it’s Friday they make look a little spare because the week’s money is running out and you haven’t been to the market yet. If the ingredients are very slim, I’ll probably spice them more.

I and the strictest of Italian cooks and mums buy only what’s in season or what’s preserved. We don’t throw in the last sausage and say what the heck, because too much really is too much. We don’t add herbs and spices unless we have in mind an outcome that requires them. Of a possible fourteen cooked meals a week, maybe three or four are planned out before the trip to the market. The rest of them are made on the spot from whatever there is. This week I have no onions, no eggs, and few vegetables. But I can still produce a good meal and fill your mouth with delicious. Just like many Italian mothers.