Mafia Pasta

So making family meals while going through a move is a challenge. Praise God for rotisserie chickens! We are currently going through our pantry trying to use us things that we aren’t able to move and still eat relatively “normal” meals. We are on the 30 day countdown of our lives here in Amherst and I am still slightly in denial. Also my family apparently thinks our stuff is magically going to show up in Charleston without having to clean out a closet. On Saturday we had a garage sale and it was HOT but something we will get used to…we sold our window fans so we are screwed if we can’t handle a little heat and are moving to South Carolina. We’ve done burgers on the grill, veggie kabobs and hot dogs as we have decided to keep our grill until the last possible moment. You see the catch 22 in being able to enjoy healthy eating and moving. Is it worth the space and cost of moving a grill?

So after a garage sale in the heat and a cold front brought rain, I took the opportunity to make one of my kid’s favorite dishes that he’s begged me to make for a while.

Mafia Pasta.

You might ask me WHY we call it Mafia Pasta. Well, a long time friend who is a native of Napoli (Naples) Italy who lives in California came to visit us here and stayed with us for a couple of days last year. When she lived here in Amherst I loved going to Christmas parties at her place because it was like a UN convention with people from all different nationalities. Italian, Israeli, Argentinian, Irish, Welsh and Australian I’ve watched how my friend has cooked much like I watch my relatives in Italy cooked years ago on a backpacking trip. There are secrets to making this dish not just good but AMAZING. I’ll just tell you it’s not the healthiest or low fat dish…but it’s with real ingredients and homemade so it gets a lot of points in my book. The reason we call it Mafia Pasta is because my son for a time was obsessed with “mafia” stories like the Godfather etc. and when our friend explained that she grew up in Naples Italy to him and that the Italian mafia was a real thing while she made our family this dish that didn’t have a name…so we named it Mafia Pasta because she didn’t have an official name for it. It’s just one of those dishes that you traditionally eat in Naples. Her kids love it, and it’s cheap and easy to make and now it’s my kid’s favorite meal.

This dish is all about process and timing. Cheap ingredients, simple but the process makes the difference.

The Ingredients

• Penne pasta (one bag/box- you can use cheap pasta but I use DeCecco pasta as homage to my family in Palena, Italy who actually work in the factory!! It’s as Pulsinelli pasta as you can get!!)
• One large bunch of basil FRESH.
• 2 pint sized containers of cherry tomatoes.
• 6-8 cloves of garlic or MORE
• Olive oil
• Heavy Cream (you CAN use half and half…but it won’t be as creamy)
• Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese (not pre grated, if you want to invest in a good hand held cheese grater this does make a difference in making pasta dishes like this. )

First you boil the water for the pasta and add… a LOT of salt. Like 3 Tablespoons.

Cook the pasta until it is AL DENTE or in Italian, “to the teeth” which means cooked until it’s still a little uncooked inside the pasta. Basically I bite it and see inside. Strain it and rinse to stop the cooking process.

While the water is boiling cut the tomatoes in half and set aside, chop the garlic and set aside.

In a high rimmed skillet (a frying pan doesn’t hold the quantity of pasta) pour in some olive oil and get the pan nice and hot. Add the garlic to the olive oil, saute that for  a few then add HALF the basil by cutting the basil with scissors into the pan. It’s going to smell really lovely! Then add the tomatoes and stir it around. Add some salt to that and cook it on high for a few, but then decrease the heat so you don’t burn the tomatoes. Add oil as needed. Cover and simmer to break down the sugars of the tomatoes a bit. About 5 minutes should do.

Add the cream and keep the heat on MEDIUM LOW so you don’t curdle the cream.

You can turn it down even to low and simmer a bit but you need to keep stirring it.

I use a flat wooden spatula thing so I scrape off anything in the pan. At this point I start grating the parmesan cheese and alternate stirring the tomatoes for a bit until I have a nice creamy sauce. I add the pasta to this and start stirring right away and the pasta will finish off cooking until it’s coated in the liquid. Sometimes I add some of the pasta water to the pan ( a trick I learned from Gennaro!) And at this point I add the rest of the basil and grate some more cheese over the dish and stir that in.

It’s VITAL that you don’t over cook this dish. So I turn off the heat and let it sit for moment covered. THEN I call the troops for dinner and serve it hot.

I never have left overs. Boo Hoo.

However it’s a great meal for teenagers when they want to appreciate their mother’s mafioso cooking and celebrate the Italian that recently according to my 23&Me I’m only 22% rather than the 25% I’ve always thought. I’m more Irish/British at 24% so go figure. Now I have to come up with a different excuse for all that talking with my hands and yelling all the time!

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