What's Cookin': One Pot Pasta (& It's Gluten-Free!)
I used to think that there was a big secret to cooking that only a select few ever figured out. Some "perfect" technique for each food that was the only way to do it justice. How to roast the "perfect" carrot. How to make the "perfect" strawberry jam. But then one evening, I sat down with my family to steaming baked potatoes that had taken me hours to make but tasted just like every other baked potato I'd ever eaten, and I thought to myself, "Isn't it all about making something simply taste good? Why should everything have to be complex and 'perfect'?" If you can bung a potato into the oven, forget about it, and transform it into deliciousness, then that's good cooking!
So here's my latest obsession: an iconoclastic one-pot pasta that doesn't care about perfection. So what if it isn't al dente? So what if the sauce isn't an all afternoon project? Every ingredient tastes tasty- isn't that the point?
I first heard about this dish on the Milk Street Radio podcast. Christopher Kimball from America's Test Kitchen and Adam Gopnik from the New Yorker were talking about why some seemingly humble recipes "go viral". They came to the conclusion that it all has to do with a recipe's mythology- how exotic it sounds.
In this particular case, folks all over the world had been making one-pot pasta dishes for a very long time. But when this particular recipe was published in Martha Stewart Living (here), it was presented as a secret discovered in a little southern Italian town, carefully guarded in a humble grandmother's kitchen.
What a charming back story! But guess what- it's simple and tasty, and that's what matters. There's no secret here, just good ingredients left alone to quietly do their thing. It works beautifully with gluten-free rice pasta (since so much starch is released), and even though I consistently overcook it, it has always been tasty.
No secrets, no "perfection", just a great bite to eat. Toss some stuff in a pan and enjoy! Isn't that how it should be?
What's your favorite, simple, not so "perfect" recipe? Please share!
Lots of love,
~Mersydotes
So here's my latest obsession: an iconoclastic one-pot pasta that doesn't care about perfection. So what if it isn't al dente? So what if the sauce isn't an all afternoon project? Every ingredient tastes tasty- isn't that the point?
I first heard about this dish on the Milk Street Radio podcast. Christopher Kimball from America's Test Kitchen and Adam Gopnik from the New Yorker were talking about why some seemingly humble recipes "go viral". They came to the conclusion that it all has to do with a recipe's mythology- how exotic it sounds.
In this particular case, folks all over the world had been making one-pot pasta dishes for a very long time. But when this particular recipe was published in Martha Stewart Living (here), it was presented as a secret discovered in a little southern Italian town, carefully guarded in a humble grandmother's kitchen.
What a charming back story! But guess what- it's simple and tasty, and that's what matters. There's no secret here, just good ingredients left alone to quietly do their thing. It works beautifully with gluten-free rice pasta (since so much starch is released), and even though I consistently overcook it, it has always been tasty.
No secrets, no "perfection", just a great bite to eat. Toss some stuff in a pan and enjoy! Isn't that how it should be?
What's your favorite, simple, not so "perfect" recipe? Please share!
Lots of love,
~Mersydotes
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