Tag Archives: Christmas pasta dishes

Pasta and Lentils

Italian Pasta and Lentils for New Year’s Good Luck

Italian Pasta and Lentils for New Year’s Good Luck

Best Kathy Twitter Pic edited for blog Italian pasta and lentils — is said to bring families around the world good luck for the new year !

Italian Pasta and Lentils for New Year’s Good Luck! 

Pasta with lentils or lentil soup is a New Year’s tradition in many Italian households. The  lentil dishes are said to bring to luck to the family on New Year’s Day.  I am not sure if anyone really knows exactly why lentils are supposed to be good luck.  Maybe it is because they are shaped like small coins?

Whatever the reason, pasta and lentils is a hearty and delicious winter combination. Lentils are rich in protein,  and the pasta/lentil combination was probably an important contribution to family nutrition  in the days of the “cucina povera” cooking in Italy. Flavored with a bit of pancetta (Italian peppery bacon), garlic and tomato, the lentils make a delicious sauce that coats the pasta beautifully.

I used “maltagliati” or “poorly cut” pasta for this dish,  which to me is reminiscent of its “cucina povera,” origins but also because  the lentils cling nicely to the short, flat noodles. If you cannot find maltagliati pasta, lasagna noodles broken by hand into small, irregular pieces will give a similar effect.

Buon anno 2019 a tutti!  Try my pasta and lentils dish on a wintry day for a warm and comforting meal.   -Kathyn Occhipinti


Italian Pasta and Lentils

 

Italian Lentils and Pasta
Pasta and Lentils ready to serve for Italian New Year’s Sunday dinner

Ingredients
(Serves 4)


1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup pancetta (Italian bacon), diced finely
1  small carrot, chopped finely*
1 stalk of celery, chopped finely*
1 small onion, skin removed, chopped finely*
1 small clove garlic, chopped finely
1/2 cup dry Italian wine, such as Chianti
1 cup Italian lentils, rinsed
1 bay leaf
pinch of dried thyme or rosemary
3 cups of water
1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1 Tbsp. tomato puree
1 lb. maltagliati pasta or lasagna noodles, coarsely broken into small pieces
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese
*See below for note about how to chop soup vegetables.

 

Method

Before starting to make the lentil sauce, put a large pot of salted water to boil on a back burner.  Cover so it will come to a boil quickly and be ready when you need to cook the pasta.

 Use a large frying pan or Dutch oven to cook the lentils on the stove top.  Coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil, which will take about 1/4 cup or so.  Let the oil heat a bit over medium heat.

Add the chopped vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, and garlic, and saute in the garlic until they soften, about 5 minutes.

The pour in the red wine and then bring to a boil. Boil off about half of the wine.

Put the lentils to the pan.  If you want firmer lentils, you can saute them at this point.  Otherwise, add the water.  Stir. Bring back to the boil and then lower heat and simmer the lentils about 20 minutes.

When the lentils have softened a bit, remove the bay leaf. Then add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, and chicken or vegetable broth.  Add more water if needed. Bring up to a simmer again and cook 10 – 15 minutes more, or until lentils are of desired tenderness.

Meanwhile, put the pasta into the boiling water.  Stir. Cover the pot to return to the boil Remove cover, stir again and let pasta cook, stirring occasionally.  Cook for less time than the package directions, to a very firm al dente, as the pasta will finish cooking with the lentils.

When the pasta is ready, drain, reserving some of the pasta water.

Add the pasta to the lentils.  Add the pasta water if needed.  The sauce should be fairly thick and coat the pasta nicely as you mix.

Cook over medium low heat another 5 minutes or so, until all is heated through and pasta is al dente.

Add the grated cheese and mix again to coat.

Serve steaming hot with crusty bread. Serve additional cheese and black pepper on the side to be added as desired.

New Year’s toast: Buon Anno!  Buon Appetito!

 

*How to Chop Vegetables
Carrots: Cut lengthwise to half, and then lengthwise again to get quarters. Line them up side by side and then cut crosswise from the tips to the base of the carrot to get small, even pieces that look like quarters of a circle.
Celery: Cut lengthwise through each celery stalk as many times as needed to give pieces the same thickness as the carrot pieces. (You will need more lengthwise cuts at the thicker part of the celery near the base.) Then cut crosswise from the tip to the base to get small, rectangular  pieces of celery about the same size as the carrot pieces.
 Onions: Cut lengthwise through the onion. Turn one of the halves flat side down.  Holding the onion together with one hand, cut lengthwise along the green lines through the onion, except for the root holding the onion together at the base.  Turn and cut horizontally, from the side away from the stem toward the stem.  Just before reaching the stem, flip the onion flat again and make the final cuts.  Discard the piece that contains the stem.

— by Kathryn Occhipinti

Best Kathy Twitter Pic edited for blogKathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the
Conversational Italian for Travelers
 series of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area.
“Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”

Join my Conversational Italian! Facebook group and follow me on Twitter at StellaLucente@travelitalian1  and start to learn Italian today for FREE!
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Tweet @travelitalian1 for Stella Lucente Italian

YouTube videos to learn Italian are available from © Stella Lucente, LLC.
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More information on and photographs of Italy can be found on Facebook Stella Lucente Italian and Pinterest Stella Lucente Italian.
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Visit learntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy! Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC

Italian Pasta and Lentils for New Year’s Good Luck

Italian-American Recipe Shrimp Recipe - Scampi

Italian-American Style Shrimp Recipe: Shrimp Scampi

Italian-American Style Shrimp Recipe: Shrimp Scampi

Best Kathy Twitter Pic edited for blog Shrimp with linguine: a family favorite for an Italian-American Christmas Eve fish dinner

It is amazing that a dish this simple can be so delicious. It is a real crowd-pleaser, loved by adults and children alike and perfect as the only dish or as one of several fish dishes (sometimes as many as seven!) served at an Italian-American Christmas Eve feast. “Scampi style” in America just means that  shrimp are cooked in a light sauce of garlic, butter, and white wine to a delightful tenderness and flavor.

Italian-American Style Shrimp Recipe: Shrimp Scampi

The Italian name “scampi” is the plural of “scampo,” which means “safety, salvation, or escape,” and the verb “scampare,” which means “to escape.” Regarding this dish, the word “scampi” cleverly refers to the tail of a certain small lobster found in the North and Mediterranean Seas. The French name is “langoustine” and the Spanish name is “cigala.” This small lobster (to get technical, the true name is Nephrops norvegicus) has meat in the tail section but not much in the claws. In the United Kingdom, “scampi”refers to the preparation of the whole tail of this lobster cooked in breadcrumbs, but tradition elsewhere renders “scampi” as a preparation of garlic, butter, and white wine. Try this easy-to-make dish this Christmas Eve and see for yourself how wonderful shrimp can taste!
—Kathryn Occhipinti

 


Italian-American Style Shrimp Recipe: Shrimp Scampi

Ingredients

1 pound of linguine, cooked (serves 4–6)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots or yellow onions
6 plump cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt and pinch of white pepper to taste
8 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup dry Italian white wine (chill the rest of the bottle for dinner)
1 pound large shrimp (about 16–18), cleaned, shell peeled off, and de-veined*
Few sprigs of chopped parsley
juice of 1/2 lemon

First, start to cook the linguine, and let the pasta cook as the sauce is being made. If you are lucky, it will all come together at about the same time! A general method for cooking pasta is as follows: set a large pot of well-salted water on the stove to boil, and at the rolling boil, add the pasta; stir; cover the pot to bring back to a boil quickly; uncover, stir, and cook until pasta is “al dente” (slightly firm). Drain and keep warm if pasta is ready before sauce is finished.

Set a large skillet with high sides or your largest frying pan on a burner over low heat. Watch the pan very closely from start to finish so that the shallots, garlic, and butter do not turn brown. The “sauce” will come together very quickly.

Put the olive oil and shallots or onions and garlic into the skillet with the salt over medium heat and cook, stirring as needed, until they soften (do not let them brown).

Add the butter and let it melt slowly. Add the salt and white pepper. Cook until the onions and garlic are translucent (cooked through).

Add the white wine and raise heat to boil down the alcohol in the wine and thicken the “sauce.” Boil down until about 3/4 cup of wine is left.

Add the shrimp and cook briefly on each side (about 3–4 minutes) over medium heat, until they turn pink, turning and moving the shrimp in butter as needed. Do not overcook, or the shrimp will dry out and become rubbery.

Taste and adjust salt and additional white pepper as needed. If too much wine has boiled off by the time the shrimp have cooked, add some pasta water. If the sauce seems a bit watery, take the shrimp out and boil down a bit more.

Take pan off heat and add the chopped parsley and juice of 1/2 lemon.  Mix to combine.

Enjoy over freshly cooked linguine. Because this is a delicate fish dish, no grated cheese topping is needed!

*To get the best flavor from the shrimp in this dish, it is best to buy the shrimp raw and clean them, although shrimp can be bought already cooked and just warmed through in a pinch. When cleaning the shrimp, the veins along the outer and inner curves of the shrimp should be removed by making a slight cut and pulling each vein out. I have a shrimp knife for this task that I found in a specialty food catalog long ago that looks like this:   Best Shrimp scampi knifeand makes the work quick and easy.

 —Adapted from the cooking classes given by the Italian-American Society of Peoria,
Kathryn Occhipinti

 

Conversational Italian for Travelers Just the Important Phrases
Conversational Italian for Travelers Just the Important Phrases (with Restaurant Vocabulary and Idiomatic Expressions) is YOUR traveling companion in Italy! All the Italian phrases you need to know to enjoy your trip to Italy are right here and fit right into your pocket or purse.

   Available on amazon.com and Learn Travel Italian.com

Best Kathy Twitter Pic edited for blog

Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the
Conversational Italian for Travelers
 series of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area.
“Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”

Join my Conversational Italian! Facebook group and follow me on Twitter at StellaLucente@travelitalian1  and start to learn Italian today for FREE!
Conversational Italian! Facebook Group
Tweet @travelitalian1 for Stella Lucente Italian

YouTube videos to learn Italian are available from © Stella Lucente, LLC.
Learn Conversational Italian.

More information on and photographs of Italy can be found on Facebook Stella Lucente Italian and Pinterest Stella Lucente Italian.
Facebook Stella Lucente Italian

Pinterest Stella Lucente Italian

Visit learntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy! Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC

Italian-American Style Shrimp Recipe: Shrimp Scampi