Winter is the time for richer, more substantial foods to help us keep the chill at bay. Here's a selection of winter pasta recipes I especially like.
If you order lasagne in a restaurant in Tuscany you will be served something along these lines -- with meat sauce bechamel sauce, and grated cheese -- and for me it's comfort food of the highest order. Making them completely from scratch is time consuming because you have to make the meat sauce; however, if you have about two cups of frozen sugo alla bolognese on hand, it only takes about an hour.
Sugo alla Bolognese, made with ground beef (and other meats to taste) and just a hint of tomato, is probably about the most common winter sauce in central-northern Italy: the longer it simmers the better it gets (warming the house in the process), and it's wonderful over pasta. It also freezes very well, and is therefore something you can make a huge batch of, and freeze in portions.
Though the Romans claim to have invented this astonishingly simple and mouth watering dish, some say it was developed by Umbrian charcoal burners. Others say it was invented as a way to use bacon and eggs bought on the black market from American service personnel during the Second World War. In any case, it’s one of the few dishes in which bacon can be substituted for the pancetta, and a steaming bowl works wonders on a cold day.
This is a nod to my American past, because I've only encountered pasta with (tiny) meatballs once in Italy, 20 years ago in Puglia. But they were good, as were the heaping plates of spaghetti and meatballs I used to enjoy in the States.
I've never understood the great infatuation with Alfredo sauce, which I find both weighty and bland. A good cream sauce made with some prosciutto is much easier to digest, and is wonderful over both flat pasta such as tagliatelle or fettuccine, and over Tortellini. If you feel you must have Alfredo, you'll find it here too.
Italians have been making stuffed pasta since long before Marco Polo's trip east, and every region has its specialties. In Liguria they stuff their ravioli with wild greens (spinach and beet greens will work) and cheese, and season them with either butter, sage, and grated cheese, or a
rich walnut sauce that does a fine job of keeping the winter chill at bay.
It might strike you as odd to stuff a pasta shell with a potato mixture, but whoever came up with the idea was inspired, because these are spectacular with a good meat sauce like the Bolognese above. Rich comfort food, and you'll wish you had more.
Stewed rabbit, or hare during hunting season, is one of the most classic country recipes in Tuscany, and it's custom to make quite a bit of sauce, with which to season pasta while enjoying the meat and whatever sauce remains as a second course.
Tajarin, pronounced taiarin, are very finely cut tagliatelle from Piemonte. In truffle season they're served with butter and abundant finely shaved white truffle, but when the season's over the drippings from a roast work very well indeed as an alternative. A bowl will warm your heart and take you straight to the Langhe.
If you're one of those people whose nose starts to twitch in proximity to a cheese counter, you'll be eating this year round. I prefer it in winter, though I'll also make it in summer if a cold front moves through .
