Italian style food recipes made by Italians

INGREDIENTS
200 g rice
350 g clams
12 oysters
3 cl anise liquor
150 g zucchini
1 shallot
20 cl white wine
1,5 l clear broth
80 g tomatoes
10 lemon balm leafs
50 g butter
Oil of olives
Salt
Pepper


DIRECTIONS
Open the clams with a small knife.

Rinse them and pass the clams in frying pan with olive oil and fall through with a some anise drops.

Add salt and pepper.

Put them on the bottom of a disposable aluminium cutters.

Open the oysters keeping the liquid, filter it and then put all in a blender for few seconds.

Filter the cream you get out of the blender.

Cut only the green part from the zucchini in small pieces and pass them in hot olive oil for few minutes. Finally add salt and pepper. Keep it in a warm place.

Gild the shallot in a pan with oil of oil.

Toast the rice in further pan with few drops of olive oil. Add some white wine and let it evaporate.

Add the oil to shallot and cook it adding the clear broth. Add salt and pepper and mix it with the butter.

Fill the cutters with rise, wait 30 seconds and put it in the middle of a plate.

Top with the oyster cream and decorate it with small tomatoes, zucchini and some lemon balm.

Arrabbiata loosely translates to "angry" referring the the heat in this tasty sauce. Although this sauce is great for almost any type of pasta, it is most often served on penne pasta and is yet another quick, traditional pasta sauce that can be made in mere minutes.

As a rule, you generally do not add cheese to any pasta that has seafood, or hot spices such as this one but I personally like a little grated Parmesan on my Arrabbiata. Add a little of the pepper flakes and wait for a few minutes before tasting. You can always add more if desired, but you can't remove them if you have made the sauce too hot initially.

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This is one of those quick pasta dishes that can be thrown together in mere minutes, yet is so tasty, it will become a family favorite. To me this is comfort food, and often our choice after a very busy day when we have a limited amount of time to prepare dinner. Adjust the amount of chilies to your own taste. The amount indicated in the recipe is just a suggestion.

Generally, you don't offer cheese to top any pasta with hot spices in it, as the cheese would diffuse the heat of the sauce, but I do like a bit of grated Parmesan cheese on this dish. I used a dry fettuccine for the photos, but we usually do make this sauce to top spaghetti.

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I often have roasted vegetables in my refrigerator and a great way to use them is as a quick and easy pasta sauce. Although I do add a little oil, the vegetables themselves become the sauce as they are meltingly tender.

You can easily roast the vegetables ahead of time which saves time during he dinner time rush to get everything on the table. I usually top this pasta with goat cheese crumbles, but grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheeses would also be very tasty. Without the cheese of course it would be a very nice vegetarian option.

I am offering two versions of this pasta below, one with tomato sauce and one without. Both are delicious but quite different in flavor.

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Winter come! Try to feel warm and comfortable with this creamy and yummy recipe from Naples. As soon as I tasted it that I would have to go home and make it in my own kitchen because it is exactly the type of recipe I love...... simple and quick to make with just a few ingredients. Smoked pancetta may be difficult to find, but you could substitute any similar product such as smoked prosciutto, or even smoked bacon. The smokey flavor is really what gives this pasta it's delicious, unique flavor so try and find a smoked product if possible. I used an artisan made pasta in this recipe but penne or rigatoni pasta would both work well.

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