POLL: Which is the best basic Italian pasta sauce?

Cacio e pepe might be the hardest thing on the planet to make.

This is impossible (to everything there is a season), but gun to my head I might go the Roberta's oxtail ragu that cooks for 4-5 hours.

When you take into account how easy/little time it takes to make, Amatriciana or pesto.

Fresh home made pesto is soooo good, particularly with really good pecorino.

Bortaga with olive oil, lemon, parsley and garlic...

― chap, Saturday, March 13, 2021 7:38 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've done a sauce like this but with anchovies instead of bortaga, it's fantastic with skinny/angel hair spaghetti.

really unhip and British of me to say bolognese?

A good bolognese can be amazing. But it's all too easy for it to be meh.

Cacio e pepe might be the hardest thing on the planet to make.

This is impossible (to everything there is a season), but gun to my head I might go the Roberta's oxtail ragu that cooks for 4-5 hours.

When you take into account how easy/little time it takes to make, Amatriciana or pesto.

― is that a haruomi hosono sword? (PBKR), Saturday, March 13, 2021 11:13 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there was a cacio e pepe recipe in lucky peach that works. i think i may have posted it in its entirety on ilx when the lucky peach site was shut down.

Marinara. Not watery. Lots of garlic in the olive oil, removed from the oil before adding the tomatoes.

there was a cacio e pepe recipe in lucky peach that works. i think i may have posted it in its entirety on ilx when the lucky peach site was shut down.

― call all destroyer, Saturday, March 13, 2021 2:18 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'd be curious. It's the technique that is the issue for me. I used Frank Prisinzano's method the last time and got a lot closer to avoiding the clumping that has always been my problem, but I started with too much water. I'm getting closer!

i love a good vodka sauce

love to get sauced on good vodka

this post has the cacio e pepe recipe: what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

cacio e pepe is cursed
it is of the devil
i cant make it work
i tried twice & almost cried both times
summary: i dont care enough abt fkn stupid parmesan cheese & fkn goddamn spaghetti to ever try again

this dish specifically gives me lex-level anxiety

voted Ragu but i'll put any of these on

I’ve only had cacio e pepe that I’ve made myself. Is it right? I doubt it! Does it taste good? Yes.

Putanesca gets my vote. I worked in an Italian restaurant kitchen for a couple of years in my youth and never came across Marsala, going to have a pop at making some next week.

Puttanesca for life, simple but versatile and just flavour flavour flav

I really really wish I liked olives.

tbh with the anchovy base and a bit of playing about you could make a puttansecesque sauce without the olives if you were that way inclined

Puttanesca is an amazing dish for how simple it is

Don't even need good ingredients,great with crap canned olives

i've heard that you can do fish sauce instead of anchovies for an interesting twist re puttanesca

I was once in an Italian restaurant in Leeds and my partner said to the waitress "oh god no olives please, I can't stand them" and I said: you might get into trouble saying that here! And the waitress replied: "I don't blame you, they are fucking minging".

the main things i care about are the anchovies, capers and some chilli spice. love olives but it wouldn't stop me if i was out

inspired by this thread I've added a jar of capers to my shopping order, they are a mystery to me.

there's a few supermarkets where you can get a jar at a sensible price, i think the little local Sainsbury's and maaaaybe Aldi sometimes? i'd eat them out the jar tbh

I recently went through my pantry after years of stuffing things in. I found out I have 5 jars of capers

the cacio e pepe recipe call all destroyer linked to sounds really good! I will skip the part where you use a pasta machine to make your own square pasta, but the last paragraph describing the chemistry of the components coming together is interesting. it reminds me of learning to make a roux to add to a gravy without lumps, or emulsifying an egg/cheese mixture to add to carbonara

life picked up when i found tins of anchovies for less than a quid in Aldi too

That cacio e pepe recipe is interesting. The admonition that too hot pasta will cause the cheese sauce to clump seems counter to most recipes that say you have to make the sauce immediately after the pasta is done (and quickly) or it will clump. I will have to give that a try.

VG otm re: cacio e pepe

I am team vongole 4eva

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I'm voting pesto.

Difficult to tell most of these apart coming from my own food culture so between all the bologneses (anything red) and all the carbonaras (not red) i choose the former

my boyfriend does an incredible puttanesca (which i only recently learned means whore's food lol). standard anchovy paste, garlic, tomatoes, olives. he adds canned tuna and thai chili garlic sauce. it's the best of these i've had, including a very good tagliatelle ala bolognese.

I love puttanesca and voted for it. I love good cacio e pepe but as noted it's hard to make my and not end up with a gummy mess. My wife's gotten pretty good at it, I'll ask which recipe she uses. She also made this delicious cacio e pepe shortbread, which is not a sauce but here's the recipe anyway: https://www.tastecooking.com/recipes/cacio-e-pepe-shortbread/

The one I think of myself as most excited about is carbonara, but when I think back to the most perfect, sublime pasta dish I've ever eaten, it was an amatriciana, and that's what I'm going with.

When I was 8, my answer would have been alfredo, and I respect anyone who has stuck with it.

Of these, the one I just don't get is vodka sauce.

What do you call it when it's just pasta water, olive oil, and parmesan?

Difficult to tell most of these apart coming from my own food culture so between all the bologneses (anything red) and all the carbonaras (not red) i choose the former

― your own personal qanon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 6 April 2021 00:14 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is, without any exaggeration, your worst post of all time

simple backpass on, the lad's cunted it into his own top corner

I do a decent version of most of these from scratch, dont get me wrong

Its just that theres not really any difference between like seven of them

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

not mad at puttanesca. have made it twice in the last few weeks funnily enough. probably one of the easiest extremely tasty meals one can make.

my rough recipe:

put the water on to boil for the pasta and put the pasta in when boiling, cook to a couple of minutes below what the packet suggests. drain and retain a few tablespoons of pasta water. do the below while the water is boiling/pasta is cooking

mince about 4 garlic cloves and about 6 anchovies, fry them gently in lots of EVOO til the garlic is coloured

chop a handful (maybe roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup) olives and capers and add to the aforementioned

small tin of tomatoes, as in not the big one, crush the tomatoes and add the can to your mixture

add the pasta and pasta water to the sauce alongsidea handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley, a handful of grated parm, a bunch of pepper, maybe a little salt (possibly not with the capers and olives) mix and let the pasta cook a little more for a few minutes.

serve with more parm for the top (and more pepper if you like pepper)

Ah, and my aversion to olives once again comes into play.

https://newmansown.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Marinara-WEBs.png

Puttanesca and amatriciana are the most fun to say

I use Lydia's recipe for puttanesca and she uses pecorino instead of parm. I like the way that works with all the other strong, salty flavors. No need to add any salt.

I dunno what it is about the vodka sauce, I learned a recipe back when I was just getting into cooking and I've made it more times than I can count.

Lightly sautee 4-5 minced cloves of garlic, red pepper flakes and salt to taste, all in 1/4 cup olive oil. Add a large can of crushed tomatoes and simmer until nicely reduced, at least 20 minutes or so. Add 2 tbsp vodka after about 15 minutes and stir in. Add 3/4ish cup cream after sauce has reduced, stir in.

Toss with cooked penne or macaroni and a cup or so of chopped parsley. It's great. The explanation I heard was there are alcohol-soluble flavor compounds in the tomato that you wouldn't taste otherwise.

I like clam sauce a lot too. Also kind of surprised marsala got no votes.

yes, the theory of vodka sauce is that you get a punched-up tomato flavor. i don't make it frequently but if you're in the mood for tomato + a little extra richness it can be great.

the one I made last night had close to a full bulb of garlic, three chillies and a load of pecorino grated over the top. no lemon. was perfect. but ofc it depends on the pasta shape too. my actual vote would be more like this:

spaghetti - aglio e olio
linguine - vongole
most other things - pesto (but alternatives considered)

the one time I looked at a recipe for aglio e olio it had lemon juice as an emulsifier for the boiled pasta and oil but looking around it's not a common ingredient for this one. I always use some butter as well as the oil with my sauces or simple pasta dishes.

Personal top 3:
Pesto alla trapanese
Amatriciana
Cacio e pepe (hardest one to get exactly right imo)

Vodka sauce - that seems to be a specifically american thing? As someone living in a very heavily Italian populated community I cant say its a sauce I see here at all.

Yes, though there are claims it was invented in Italy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOWG4pU2-6Y

Italian chef making penne alla vodka. If I understood him, he's saying the use of vodka came via Croatian influence.

Oops brain fart. Slovenian not Croatian.

Can't stand marsala, I'm glad it received zero votes

never had it and it sure doesn't look good

there are a lot of good uses for marsala that aren't pasta sauce tbf