For me pasta is comfort food since that’s what I grew up eating. It’s my go to, don’t want to take out a recipe book meal.
Italian restaurants have always been a hard one for me because it’s VERY rarely authentic. I know right away if it’s authentic or not if the servers pronounce BRUSCHETTA as brewsheta...it’s pronounced as bru-sketta….huge pet peeve LOL, especially when they correct me on how I pronounce it...sorry...obviously it’s a sore subject and has nothing to do with pasta but my point is there aren’t many authentic Italian restaurants.
By no means am I the best Italian cook, but I’ve learned a few things from my mom and Nonna and wanted to share them with you.
Pasta water
Pasta water is a huge automatic seasoning for your sauce. As you’re boiling the pasta take some of that water and add it to any sauce you’re making and it will completely uplift and enhance the flavor. That’s because you would’ve added salt to the water before adding the pasta. So make sure you don’t add a lot of salt to the sauce you’re making before you add the pasta water because then it will be too salty.
Tomato sauce
Please don’t buy progresso or ragú sauce!! First of all the ingredients are atrocious, second of all you deserve so much better. It’s not hard to make tomato sauce. You can get puréed tomatoes and use that. With any tomato sauce sautéeing garlic and onions in olive oil first is so important. You can also make your own with fresh tomatoes. I love sautéing and browning the tomatoes first, blending them and then adding them to the garlic and onions. You will need to add salt. If it’s a bit acidic the best way of cutting that is adding a pinch of sugar. If you have fresh basil add some in the last few mins...sooo yummy
Coat the pasta with your sauce
This is such an important step. If I ever see pasta with the sauce just sitting on top at a restaurant that’s also a tell all sign it ain’t gonna be that great lol.
Add your sauce to your pasta and mix well before serving, you can add some parmigiano to it. Always season before serving, it might need a bit more salt and some fresh cracked pepper just to finish off.
Buon appetito
Lol #brusCHEtta