C2I recipe: The ultimate pasta dish

My favorite C2I meal is the multicourse Italian meal. The courses are antipasto, pasta (primo), grilled meats and veggies (secondi), salad (insalata), and dessert. In such a meal, the pasta is part of a harmonized system and rarely has big globs of meat or buckets of sauce and cheese smothering the life out of it. For me, nothing is more elegant than a classic pasta bianco ("white" pasta -- referring to the absence of a heavy sauce). My favorite variation is as follows:

• Long pasta like spaghetti or linguine. My preferred brands are DeCecco or Barilla (yes, brand matters and IMHO, these are the best). For the most part, follow package instructions. I find usually the timing on the package is short by about 1 or 2 minutes so make sure you taste. Also don't forget to salt the water.
• Drain the pasta and put aside. Quickly return the pot to heat. Healthy glob of olive oil (1/4 cup for a full package of pasta). Into the hot oil add couple of big teaspoons of chopped chilli's (any kind will do as long as they have a good kick), and a couple of finely chopped garlic. Saute lightly.
• Put pasta into the pot and stir to coat with the olive oil.
• Stir in about a quarter cup of finely chopped Italian parley.
• Serve family-style in a big pasta bowl. Don't forget a healthy amount of good quality Parmesan cheese sprinkled over the dish.

Variations include stirring in a nice green like spinach or arugula (don't over-cook -- just enough to wilt it.), or grill some sliced Portuguese chorizo sausage, or mushrooms. I would typically do these options if I'm not entertaining and wanted the pasta to be a principal dish in a regular meal. For a dinner party though, I prefer simpler and classically elegant.

Wine? Sure why not. A nice Chianti, Burgundy, or any of the fruitier New World reds will be fine.

Rebirth ...

I had completely forgotten that I had started this blog ... since the last post, many things have happened in my cooking life. The most notable would be what I call my "stupid stove" a 48" Dacor range. Since that investment, my cooking has scaled significantly with meals for a dozen (two or three dozen) people producing no real sweat. I've also consolidated my thoughts on foods, strategies, etc. and now count, countless successful meal-parties to my credit. This past weekend was my birthday weekend as well as a long weekend in Canada. To celebrate, we hosted a couple of dinner parties. One was steak and lobster (the bugs were on sale for $4.99 a pound) and the other was homemade pizza on the barbeque. I chose the grill for my oven because it was freaking hot on the weekend and I didn't want to have the Dacor pumping 4 pizza's worth of 600 degree heat into the house. This was the first time for cooking pizza on the barby (using suitable Stone Oven pizza stones). What I found was a) it created a fantastic crust bottom and b) the stone actually gets so hot that the top has no chance of cooking properly. So for this occasion, I did blast the suckers under the broiler for a few minutes and that did the trick. I must remember to perfect this technique though.