Pasta Recipes for Dinner Parties and Duvet Days

Only a week and a half left of our fabulous pasta offer – where you can get 5 of our most classic pasta dishes for just £5 each! These 5 represent some of the best-known pasta dishes Italy has produced, but this week we thought we would share a couple which are a little less famous.

We’ve chosen a creamy-but-hot, endlessly comforting Roman dish – Cacio e Pepe – and a dinner party showstopper for the keen chefs among you with spicy Squid-Ink Pasta with Prawns.

Let us start off easy…

Cacio e Pepe

Ingredients

400g Spaghetti

160g Pecorino Romano cheese

Loads and loads of freshly-ground black pepper

Pinch of salt

Cooking time: 15mins

Method

1. Boil water and add a pinch of salt before popping in your spaghetti.
2. You'll want your pasta to be al dente so check the packet for cooking time. It's usually about 6-10 mins.
3. 1-2 minutes before the pasta is done, get yourself a deep bowl, that is wider than the pan you are using, and place it on top of the pan to warm it. This is a surprisingly important step, since the temperature of the pasta is what will determine the creaminess of your sauce.
4. Grate your cheese.
5. When your pasta is done, remove it from the pan and pop it in the bowl. Warning: DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR PASTA WATER. This step is also key! Firstly, the heat of the pasta water will help to melt the cheese slightly, and secondly the starch, which the pasta has released into the water, will help to bind the cheese and the pepper to the spaghetti.
6. Add two ladles worth of the pasta water to the bowl of pasta, then add your cheese.
7. Stir together, adding more water if the mix is too dry, and more cheese if it is too watery.
8. Add as much pepper as you would like.
9. Stir until the cheese and pepper have formed a creamy sauce which clings to the pasta.

And now for something a little more complex…

Squid Ink Pasta with Prawns, Chilli and Herbs

Ingredients

3 tbsp of flat-leaf parsley

2 thinly-sliced spring onions

1 tbsp of mint leaves

1 tbsp of basil

1 tbsp of rinsed capers

3 rinsed tinned anchovies

2 tbsp of olive oil

250g of squid ink pasta

14 prawns; cooked, peeled and shells removed.

1 small, deseeded, thinly sliced fresh chilli

A squeeze of lemon juice

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil.
2. Set 1bsp of flat-leafed parsley and 2 tbsp of the sliced green parts of the spring onion to one side for later.
3. 2. Place the remaining parsley and spring onion in a food processor. Add the mint, basil, capers and anchovies; blending until the mixture is well combined and finely chopped.
4. Slowly add olive oil to give the sauce consistency. Add seasoning if needed.
5. 3. Once the water begins to boil, add the pasta and a pinch of salt; cook until the pasta is al dente (see the packet for cooking time).
6. Return the pasta to the pan and add the herb sauce, chilli, prawns and lemon juice to taste.
7. Toss well and serve.
8. Garnish with the parsley and spring onion you set aside, sprinkling generously with salt and pepper.

Pasta perfection - which one will you choose? Will you stun with Squid ink or chill with Cacio e Pepe? Get in touch on Facebook or Twitter and let us know! 

Quiz: How well do you know Pasta?

We're still doing 5 classic pastas for £5 here at Pizzeria Oregano, but which one should you go for? Well take our Pasta Shapes Quiz and find out!

Pasta: The Facts

“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” ― Sophia Loren

Well, if it’s good enough for Sophia, it’s certainly good enough for us - and we’re not stopping at spaghetti, oh no! This month is all about that most glorious Italian dish: pasta.

Ahhh, pasta. We can barely imagine a world without it, but there was a time when it didn’t exist. So this week we’re starting at that time and then moving forwards to share all our favourite pasta facts!

1) The first mention to pasta can be found in Sicily in 1154 – that’s over 850 years ago!

2) But it wasn’t referred to in English until 720 years later in 1874.

3) The word “Pasta” comes from Latin and means “dough, pastry cake.”

4) Pasta is flavoured and paired with all sorts of ingredients, but traditionally it is all made from durum wheat and water.

5) There are over 300 different shapes of pasta, with over 1300 different names (the pasta most-commonly known as “cavatelli”, for example, has 28 different names depending on region and town)!

6) Pasta is divided by two main classifications, pasta fresca (fresh) and pasta secca (dried).

7) Pasta secca is only considered real pasta if it is made the proper Italian way. This means slow-drying it for more than 50 hours in a copper mould and then in the open air. (The rest of the world usually dries pasta in steel moulds at extremely high temperatures for short periods of time, resulting in an inferior product.)

8) Unlike here in the UK, in Italy, pasta is traditionally served as a first course, in small, simple portions.

9) There are three different types of pasta dish:

a) Pastasciutta = cooked pasta served with a sauce. (e.g. Spaghetti Bolognese)

b) Pasta in brodo = pasta as part of a soup dish. (“Brodo” means “broth”.)

c) Pasta al forno = pasta as part of a dish which is baked. (e.g. Lasagne)

10) You can’t just slop any old sauce on any old pasta! Pair your pasta carefully with your sauce. Take these examples:

a) Pesto = goes with long, thin strands of pasta that it can stick to.

b) Tomato sauce = better with thicker pasta.

c) Chunky sauces = better with tubular or twisted pastas so it can sit in the holes etc.

11) Get your proportions right! You should never have too much sauce – you’ve got to be able to taste the pasta too!

12) It is estimated that Italians eat over 60lbs (27kg) of pasta per person per year. That’s 3 times as much as they eat in the US!

13) In fact, Italians eat so much pasta that the country can’t produce enough wheat to keep up, which has led to Italy actually importing wheat from other countries to make its pasta!

And there you have it, all you need to know about pasta. And if you want to see how it’s done the real Italian way, head on over to Pizzeria Oregano now and try one of our 5 classic pasta dishes for just £5!

Our Top 5 classic pasta dishes

Orecchiette Broccoli e Salsiccia

Tortelloni Ricotta e Spinaci

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Penne all’Amatriciana

Tagliatelle alla Bolognese

Find more HERE.