Pasta Grannies – Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison
In her second volume of Pasta Grannies, Vicky Bennison shifts her focus to recipes that focus on comfort cooking – sharing authentic recipes from much-loved Italian grandmothers.
Photography: Lizzie Mayson
‘Our nonne have been making pasta since they were children, so don’t worry, it’s not complicated,’ says Vicky Bennison. Photo: Lizzie Mayson
Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking answers the all important questions when it comes to making pasta from scratch: What is 00 flour? When should I use eggs? How do I roll out a pasta sheet? And much more. Photo: Lizzie Mayson
At the heart of any special meal is spending time with our family and friends, and cooking for the ones we love.
Six years after the first volume of Pasta Grannies, Vicky Bennison is back with the second volume: Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking.
‘Six years later, people tune in for the pasta, but stay for the grannies,’ says Vicky.
The author is also the creator of the hugely popular YouTube channel of the same name, bringing recipes and stories from much-loved Italian grandmothers who share their authentic recipes.
The book introduces us to 60 of the most popular nonne and includes recipes and soul food made with love, such as 91 year-old Pina’s chestnut gnocchi with walnut pesto, made with ingredients she grows around her home in Liguria; or 99 year-old Marietta’s special tagliatelle recipe, which is not really a recipe at all but a reflection of her vegetable garden, the Calabrian countryside and the changing seasons.
Every recipe is accompanied with a QR code, which will take you directly to the YouTube videos so you can see the remarkable women in their kitchens.
Below we share a recipe from the book: Maccheroni pasta with Tropea onions from Calabria.
Catarina’s tagliatelle con melanzane e ricotta salata - tagliatelle with aubergine and salted ricotta from Sicily from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Grannies. Photo: Lizzie Mayson
Carla’s risi e tochi - chicken stew from Veneto from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Grannies. Photo: Lizzie Mayson
“Our ‘nonne’ have been making pasta since they were children, so don’t worry, it’s not complicated.”
Mara’s tiramisù alla Trevigiana -Tiramisù from Treviso from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Grannies. Photo: Lizzie Mayson
Maccheroni pasta with Tropea onions from Calabria from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Grannies. Photo: Lizzie Mayson
ELISABETTA’S FILEJA CON CIPOLLE DI TROPEA - MACCHERONI PASTA WITH TROPEA ONIONS FROM CALABRIA
The women of Tropea in Calabria have a reputation for being independently minded and good at business; Elisabetta is a charming example. She was one of five siblings who ended up taking over their brother’s restaurant in Tropea ‘for fun, because he was away at sea for long periods’. She was in charge of the kitchen for 60 years and this was one of her popular pasta dishes using the beautiful sweet red onions for which Tropea is famous. Elisabetta says they’re sweet because they grow so close to the sea; certainly the sandy soils and moderate climate help. Even those who usually swerve the raw onions in a salad find these palatable.
If you want to make your own sun-dried pepper paste, start by growing the round tomato-shaped Topepo variety. Boil the peppers until tender, peel off the skin, put the flesh through a food mill to remove the seeds, stir in some salt (taste it, don’t go mad) and spread out the mixture to dry in really hot sun on a wide tray with edges so you can clip over some fine netting to keep out the bugs. It will reduce in volume considerably as the juices evaporate over several days. Alternatively, buy some Turkish biber salçasi which is an acceptable substitute for the Topepo paste; one cannot find the Topepo paste even in other parts of Italy.
Prep 45 minutes, plus resting time
Makes 4
Dried pasta alternative: Spaghetti
FOR THE PASTA
250 g (scant 1⅔ cups) 00 or plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
50 g (⅓ cup) semolina flour
about 150 ml (⅔ cup) warm water
FOR THE DRESSING
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6–8 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced (you want a total of 700 g prepped onion)
1 teaspoon salt
dried peperoncino flakes (to taste)
200 g passata
1 heaped teaspoon sun-dried pepper paste or biber salçasi
TO SERVE
Grated pecorino, to taste
A handful of basil leaves
METHOD
To make the pasta, sift the semolina flour into a large bowl and pour most of the water into the flour, reserving 15ml (one tablespoon). Work the dough with strong hands – no need to be gentle here – to gather it into a ball for kneading. Use the extra 15 ml of water only if you really can’t get the dough to form after trying for a good minute or two. Semolina has a tendency to trick novices into thinking you need more hydration than necessary, as it feels dry until you have worked it for a bit.
When you have formed a ball, turn it out onto the pasta board and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and lightly bouncy. Cover and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
To form the fileja, you will need a square-sided metal rod called a ferro; failing that, a wooden kebab skewer will do nicely – it should be about 30 cm (12 in) long.
Cut off a small amount of pasta dough and roll it out into a rope about the thickness of a pencil. Snip into 12 cm lengths. Elisabetta likes to wrap each one around her rod (hers happens to be bamboo) and roll it gently with flat palms, which start together in the middle of the rod and move outwards. Remember to keep everything well-floured to stop the pasta from sticking to the skewer.
Don’t press too hard and do not elongate the pasta too much making it very thin on the rod or skewer, as this will also result in the dough sticking.
Once you have an imperfect ‘tube’ of pasta, gently place it in one hand and twist and twizzle the ferro or skewer back and forth, gently easing it from the pasta. Don’t hold the pasta hard. You will be left with tubes that look a bit like leaky or incomplete bucatini (long pasta with a hole through the length).
Put the olive oil, sliced onions, salt and peperoncino flakes in a medium sauté pan, stir well and start cooking the mixture over a low heat. After 15 minutes, add the passata and pepper paste. Keep cooking and add a splash of water as needed to prevent the onions from sticking or burning.
The sauce is ready when the onions are pale, mushy and reduced to almost a paste. This will take a good 40 minutes.
Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water for about 5 minutes, and in the meantime reheat the sauce in a sauté pan (add a little water if it looks dry). Once the pasta is al dente, transfer it with the spider sieve from the boiling water into the sauté pan and finish cooking. Add a little pasta cooking water if necessary. Take the pan off the heat and stir through the grated pecorino and freshly shredded basil. Serve on warmed plates with more peperoncino if you like things spicy.
