How much does Mateo Zielonka love pasta? A seemingly inexhaustible amount. He makes it for his day job as a chef, makes it for his popular online accounts as the Pasta Man and loves making it at home too. "I eat it five, six days a week — in smaller portions, with green salad or some broccoli on the side, because it’s nice to have it with lots of vegetables."
If there’s time, he makes fresh pasta, which he insists can be produced without breaking a sweat. But dried pasta works just as well. "The sauce is the main thing," he says.
Zielonka’s new cookbook, Pasta Pronto, is full of clever, time-saving tips and delicious sauces, some requiring a shopping list and a spare half hour, others needing little more than the basics.
His interest in pasta was seeded by watching The Sopranos as a teenager in Poland, but Zielonka only started making it in earnest eight or nine years ago. His creative approach — weaving together multicoloured strands, creating ravioli imprinted with horses or Christmas trees — has won him fans around the world.
For all the technical wizardry on his feeds, however, Zielonka counsels rookie pasta makers to keep it simple. "Perfect doesn’t exist," he says. "Aim for rustic instead and don’t be afraid of making mistakes."
Tips for great pasta
• Use a food processor
People say you must knead the pasta dough for 10 minutes. It’s the classic way, but if you have a food processor, you can tip in the flour and egg, blitz it for 10 or 15 seconds and combine it with your hands, then rest it for half an hour and you’re ready to roll.
• Get the seasoning right
It is the most important thing. When I teach classes, people add tiny pinches of salt as if it is poison. Don’t be shy, season properly. The food needs to taste!
• Don’t throw out the water
Pasta cooking water is very important because it’s full of starch. Add some to your sauce to loosen it, and it will help the sauce to bind to all the pasta strands.
• Be adventurous
Don’t be afraid to experiment. Adapt recipes — we all like different levels of spice, saltiness and sourness. If you make a mistake, it can usually be fixed — balsamic vinegar can add sweetness to a sour tomato sauce, while a knob of butter can soften it.
• Raid your cupboard
If you keep simple ingredients in the store cupboard, you can make a speedy supper. I always have dried pasta, olive oil, garlic, lemons and Parmesan. A jar of anchovies in olive oil, a tin of Italian tomatoes and a jar of chickpeas will all give you options to make a quick pasta sauce.
Spaghetti alla tapenade
Inspired by a beautiful tapenade that one of our friends made recently, I came up with this tapenade sauce, which pairs perfectly with pasta. Make sure you use good-quality olives and anchovies for this sauce as it really does lift the flavour. You will need a food processor.
Serves 4
90ml olive oil
200g kalamata olives, pitted
6 anchovy fillets
2 tsp salted capers, rinsed
zest of 1 lemon, juice of ½
360g dried spaghetti, or 400g fresh
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bunch parsley (about 25g), leaves picked and finely chopped
3 Tbsp pangrattato, or grated Parmesan, to serve
Place half the olive oil in the bowl of a food processor, then add the olives, anchovies, capers and lemon zest and juice, then pulse for 10-15 seconds until the ingredients are just chopped into little pieces (you don’t want a puree, but something with plenty of texture). Transfer the mixture to a small bowl.
Bring a large pan of water to the boil before adding salt, then cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions.
Meanwhile, heat the remaining olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds.
Use tongs to lift the spaghetti into the garlicky oil (it will carry some of the starchy pasta cooking water with it — just what you want). Toss the pasta in the garlicky oil, then add the tapenade and chopped parsley and swirl everything together, adding more pasta cooking water if the sauce needs to be loosened a little. Once the pasta is well coated in the sauce, season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve straight away with plenty of Parmesan or some delicious crunchy pangrattato. A bowl of green beans with lemon is good alongside. A glass of robust red wine is the perfect accompaniment, too.
Spaghetti with creamy ricotta and basil
Ricotta makes a deliciously creamy yet light sauce, which is especially good when blended with fragrant basil leaves. Such a simple summer supper, served with a green leaf salad or a dish of shaved courgettes with basil and mint and a glass of chilled white wine.
Serves 4
45ml olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 shallots, thinly sliced
55g Parmesan, grated
25g basil leaves
zest of 1 lemon zest, juice of ½
200g ricotta
360g dried spaghetti, or 400g fresh
pangrattato to serve
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the garlic and shallots on a medium heat until soft. This will take about 5 minutes. Set to one side.
Place the Parmesan, basil leaves and lemon zest and juice in the bowl of a food processor and blitz for 15-20 seconds until you have a thick paste. Transfer this mixture to a medium bowl, add the ricotta and use a wooden spoon to combine well. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, then leave to one side while you cook the pasta.
Bring a large pan of water to the boil before adding salt, then cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions.
Once the pasta is cooked, use kitchen tongs to transfer it to the saucepan of shallots, carrying over some of the starchy cooking water. Stir together well, then add the ricotta mixture and continue to stir. Loosen the sauce with extra pasta cooking water, if needed. Check the seasoning and serve in 4 warmed bowls, scattering a generous handful of pangrattato on top. — The Observer
