My best authentic Italian Pasta Recipe

Lasagna is my favourite course, I like it too much ..especially the classic one, Lasagna bolognese. This secret fo a perfect lasagna is the perfect balance of cream, cheese and meat. I'll give the recipe using home made pasta (you need a pasta machine to make the pasta) but you can use pasta sold on supermarket (personally I suggest Barilla brand). It's a fairly involved recipe but the end result makes it all worthwhile. I think you'll agree. Yield is 6 to 8 servings. Give me your comment after testing it

Ingredients
Pasta

• 1 3/4 cups flour
  
• pinch salt
  
• 3 eggs

Bolognese Sauce

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 2 onions, finely chopped
  
• 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
  
• 1 small Italian spicy sausage, casing removed
  
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  
• 2 small carrots, finely diced
  
• Several sprigs fresh thyme
  
• 2 bay leaves
  
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
  
• 1x28 ounce can plum tomatoes with juice, chopped
  
• coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  
• 1 bunch fresh basil, washed, stemmed, and chopped
  

Bechamel Sauce

• 1/3 cup butter
  
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp. flour
  
• 4 cups milk
  
• pinch freshly grated nutmeg
  
• coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  
• 2 tablespoons Pecorino Romano cheese
  
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
  

Assembly

• oil, for baking dish
  
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
  
• coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  

Cooking

Pasta
In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment add flour and salt to the mixing bowl. With mixer on low speed, add 1 egg at a time until incorporated. Continue to mix for 3 to 4 minutes until the dough starts to come together. Remove dough from mixer and knead to form a ball. Cover and let rest for 1 hour

Roll out pasta.
Cut dough into 12 pieces. Roll dough into thick sheets on the pasta machine, starting at the thickest setting, reducing pasta setting one mark each time you roll the dough through. Cook pasta in boiling salted water for about 4 minutes or until just al dente. Transfer to bowl with cold water to prevent sticking. Drain on towel.

Bolognese Sauce
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil on medium. Add the onion and saute 3 to 4 minutes or until soft.
Add the beef and Italian sausage and cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until browned. Add the garlic and carrots and saute for 3 minutes just to soften. Add the thyme sprigs, bay leaves, oregano, tomatoes and salt and pepper and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 55 to 60 minutes or until sauce is thickened and flavour has developed to your liking. Add the fresh basil and adjust seasoning.

Bechamel Sauce
In a medium saucepan on medium heat, melt butter. Add the flour and stir with wooden spoon until a paste forms. Remove from heat and add the cold milk a little at a time while stirring well between each addition.Return to heat once all the milk is added and mixture is smooth. Continue stirring over medium heat until sauce comes to a boil and thickens, about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of nutmeg and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the Pecorino and Parmesan cheese and stir.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil the bottom of a 13- by 9- by 2-inch baking dish. Reserve a quarter of the bechamel sauce for the top layer. Layer lasagna as desired starting with pasta and alternating bolognese sauce, grated cheese and bechamel. Season well between each layer. Finish with a layer pasta, the reserved bechamel sauce and extra cheese on the top layer to finish (you should have 6 layers of lasagna). Bake lasagna in middle of oven for about 35 to 40 minutes or until golden.

Here it is another delicious Pasta recipe. If you have pieces of sausage in your refrigerator, defrost a few and cook this pasta with sausage and tomatoes. I give the recipe with sweet sausage but if you want to go spicier you can use hot sausage or increase the amount of red pepper flakes.

Serves 4-6

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 1 medium sweet onion, diced
  
• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage meat (stuffing from 4 links)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  
• salt to taste
  
• 1 35oz can of imported Italian tomatoes
  
• 6 fresh basil leaves
  
• 1 pound mezzi rigatoni
  

Cooking

Heat olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and sautè, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add sausage meat, red pepper and salt to taste. Cook, stirring occasionally until sausage is browned approximately 10 minutes. In a large bowl, crush the tomatoes with your hands then add them with their juices to the pan.
Add 1/2 cup of water and bring to a simmer. Turn heat to low and let simmer until thickened, about 45 minutes. At the very end of cooking, tear 2 of the basil leaves into pieces with your hands and stir into the sauce. While sauce is cooking, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the mezzi rigatoni. Cook uncovered over high heat until al dente. Drain the pasta and toss with half of the sauce.
Dish pasta out into individual serving plates, top with a little more sauce, garnish with the remaining basil leaves torn by hand and serve.

Spaghetti...I love spaghetti...it's our traditional course!! They are an emblem of Italian cousine, spaghetti is frequently served with tomato sauce, which may contain various herbs (especially fresh basil), genuine olive oil and onion. Grated hard cheeses, such as Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, are often added.

Following a very easy recipe, a traditional Italian spaghetti course : Spaghetti Aglio e Olio (spaghetti with oil and garlic).

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 250 gr. spaghetti,
  
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil,
  
• chopped fresh parsley,
  
• 1 pinch chili flakes,
  
• 1 tbsp. minced garlic,
  
• salt,
  
• Parmesan cheese
  

Cooking

Heat the olive oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high temperature. Add the garlic and cook until golden brown. Be careful to not brown the garlic too much, as the pasta will have unpleasant smell. Add the boiled and strained spaghetti to the pan and toss with the chili flakes and chopped fresh parsley. Season to taste. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese. Somebody says that grated cheese is not indicate for this course but I like it and I think it makes spaghetti very good. A variation of this recipe uses anchovy fillet added at the same time of garlic; if you want to try it will be very tasty. that's it...do you want to try?It's very easy and fast...indicated when you don't want to spend a lot of time cooking.

I love string beans sautéed in oil and garlic, and they are especially good with pasta. This is a great dish for the spring and summer

Ingredients for 4 Servings

• 1-1/2 pounds string beans.
  
• 1/2 cup olive oil
  
• 3 cloves of garlic
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1 pound of penne pasta
  

Cooking

Clean string beans by breaking off ends. Bring one pot of water to a boil and place string beans and 1 tablespoon of salt in water and cook until tender. Bring a second pot of water to a boil add 2  tablespoons of salt and the penne, cook until just al dente.

While string beans and pasta are cooking, peal garlic cloves and crack them by pressing down on them with the side of a chef's knife. Heat oil in large frying pan over medium heat.

Add garlic and cook until lightly browned. Drain the string beans, reserving 1/4 cup of the water they were cooked in. Add string beans, pasta, salt & pepper and the water to oil and garlic in pan.

Stir together for about 1 minute and serve.

Stuffed conchiglioni with mushrooms, ham and bechamel is a very appetizing first course. We may define it a classic dish for your festivities. You can prepare it the night before and put into the oven few minutes before lunch.

Conchiglioni,fot their special hollow shape, are a classic pasta shape that can be enriched with various kinds of stuffing: for this recipe I have prepared one with mushrooms, zucchini, ham, bechamel sauce and grated cheese; when conchiglioni will be placed in the pan, they will be baked for a few minutes until you get a golden and crunchy crust.

Difficulty: Medium
Cooking time: 30 min
Preparation: 20 min
Serves 4

Garlic 2 cloves
1 mushroom bouillon cube
500 gr of Champignon mushrooms
Extra virgin oil 1 / 2 cup
Grated Parmesan 100 gr
Pasta conchiglioni 300 gr
Grated Pecorino 50 gr
Chopped Parsley 2 tablespoons
Cooked diced Ham 125 gr
Sale
Two Zucchini
Bechamel 500ml

In a large pan, finely chop the garlic and fry without letting it burn with 8 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the cleaned and cutted into small pieces mushrooms (a 1-inch square cubes) and cook them over high heat, adding 1 crumbled mushroom bouillon cube. At the end of cooking, add the chopped parsley.
In the meantime, prepare the Bechamel (with only 1 / 2 liter of milk) following the traditional recipe. 

In another pan, pan fry the diced ham with zucchini (cutted into small pieces) and two tablespoons of oil until the zucchini will be made soft.

In the meantime, boil conchiglioni, drain when they will be al dente and place them under a jet of cold water in order to stop cooking, then pour over the oil and mix them to prevent that they could stick together.





Put in a blender the mushrooms (except that 3-4 tablespoons that you have to set aside), the zucchini, the ham, half bechamel, 50g of parmesan cheese and 50 grams of grated Pecorino. Blend for a few moments with low speed in order to obtain a compound where the pieces of mushroom or zucchini remain visible but not overly large (like meat sauce).








Fill conchiglioni with the mixture, using a spoon, and put them next to each other in an oiled baking pan. Fill the pan with stuffed conchiglioni, then add the remaining mushrooms

If you want you can prepare the baking pan with stuffed conchiglioni just the night before and store it in the refrigerator, covering it with transparent film. Pull it out of fridge half an hour before putting in the oven, leaving it at room's temperature.

To prepare stuffed conchiglioni, in place of the champignon mushrooms, you can choose other types of mushrooms that you like, for example the most valuable porc

Lasagna with ricotta cheese is a really unusual pasta dish, characterized by a delicately flavored and very palatable.

It is a vegetarian alternative to traditional lasagna, great to serve at the Christmas lunch.

The key ingredient of lasagna is the ricotta cheese that has to be be fresh and creamy.

The taste of this lasagna will be even more special if you use the sheep or buffalo ricotta.

Difficulty: Very Low
Cooking: 60 min
Preparation: 25 min
Serves: 4 people
Cost: Low

For the cream cheese
Hot Water
2 tablespoons of olive oil
500gr of Ricotta cheese
Salt


For bechamel
50 gr of Butter
40 gr of flour
500ml of Milk
Salt


For the lasagna
Fresh Lasagna 250 gr
Nutmeg powdered
4 tablespoons of Olive oil
Parmesan 100g
Pecorino grated 50 gr
White Pepper
4 sprigs of fresh Thyme

First you need to prepare the bechamel sauce by following the recommended dosage and the usual recipe to prepare it. Then put the ricotta cheese in a bowl with oil, dilute it with a tablespoon of hot water hot (2) and add the salt (3).

Helping with a wooden spoon, mix everything until you get a rather smooth cream (4), then add the grated Parmisan to the bechamel (5). Take a pan and put on the bottom a couple of tablespoons of oil and beschamel (6).

Now place the lasagna (7) and sprinkle with a layer of ricotta cheese cream (8) and one with the bechamel sauce (9).

Then sprinkle with the nutmeg, the white pepper and the fresh thyme (10). Continue alternating lasagna to the layers made with ricotta cheese and béchamel (11). Finish with a layer of bechamel and garnish with leaves of fresh thyme. Put in the oven to 160 degrees for one hour (until it will present the classic golden crust). Take out from the oven the Lasagna with ricotta cheese, let it rest for ten minutes then cut and serve.

In cooking, ricotta is used for the preparation of various courses: from appetizers to the filling for fresh pasta (tortellini, ravioli, etc ...), from pies to main dishes (meatballs or stuffed). You can use it also to make several regional sweets including cakes, pies, pastries, Sicilian cannoli, cream cakes for fillings.

The ricotta is very rich in protein, has a content of fat and calories very low, although in some cases, it is added to the serum of pure milk or cream to give the cheese a denser texture and creamy, in this case becomes inevitably produced less light and digestible.

Ricotta cheese contains lactose in amounts varying from 2 to 4% depending on the milk used, hence also the content of fat ranging from 8% to cow cheese, cottage cheese and 24% for sheep.