rachele's woman's magazine carrot vegetable pasta (maccheroncini alle carote)

rachele made this pasta for us in Italy after other friends raved about it. We liked it too. But our letter reminding them of our request for the recipe took quite some time for a response via gianpiero's e-mail. Finally the photocopy of the magazine page showed up in the mail with a little note saying that it takes a lot less than 40 minutes if you use a pressure cooker as she does. bob forgot this part of the note until after following the original recipe pretty closely.

For 4 persons, about 40 minutes total, unless you pressure cook:

ingredients

400 g maccheroncini (1 lb elbow macaroni or butterfly pasta)

300 g carrots (about 3 or 4 medium carrots)

1 smallish eggplant

2 narrow zucchini

1 large clove of garlic (or to taste)

20 g ~ 1.5 T butter

3 T oil

.05 l ~1/4 c cream of your choice

30 g ~ 2/3 c grated parmigiano or other "grana"

1 T chives, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

instructions

1. Peel carrots, slice and boil in salted water until soft, about 10 minutes. Drain and puree' in a suitable kitchen gadget: blender or food processor.
2. Put the result in a small nonstick pan on low heat for about 5 minutes, then salt and pepper to taste (dr bob has no taste so just eyeballs it unless ms_ani is around to handle the salt decision) and stir in the cream, presumably with the heat off.
3. Meanwhile after the carrots are on their own on the stove, peel the 2 zucchini, and cut each lengthwise in half and then in half again (in quarters) and then slice widthwise about 3/16 inch slices. At least that's what we did once. You may julienne them or chop them in any way you see fit (the recipe says cube them). Slice the unpeeled eggplant widthwise and then into small cubes.
4. Peel and press one large garlic clove into the oil and butter in a saucepan and start heating. As soon as the garlic starts dancing, throw in the chopped zucchini and eggplant. Sauté 10 or 15 minutes, 15 is better. Then salt and pepper to taste.
5. Meanwhile, probably at step 3, start the pasta water boiling. Dump in your choice of pasta when the water is boiling (preceded by some salt). Cook until al dente. Drain. Put back in the pot over low heat (?). Stir in the carrot sauce and parmigiano and finally the sautéed vegetables and chopped chives.
6. Eat.

notes

1. rachele used butterfly pasta (farfalle). We used cavatelli. Maccheroncini you will never find written on a box of pasta in the USA, but they are just small elbow macaroni. Since our version did not measure up to rachele's maybe we should have stuck with the farfalle.
2. Chives are not an ingredient that frequently finds its way into our cooking, and when we did this originally in the early nineties where we live, fresh spices were more difficult to come by. Nowadays they are much more easily found in supermarkets.
3. So we should redo this in a pressure cooker. Hmm. What about the liquid? We better get in touch with rachele again. gianpiero, ..., help!

rachele's revision 2001

ciao Bob and Any,

You are very patient, but finally you get the answer to the macaroni with carrots recipe.

I use the pressure cooker to cook all the vegetables. Starting with the carrots, peel them off and put them into the pressure cooker with a quarter of glass of water and cook them for about 5 minutes.  When they are done, puree them in a mixer and make it creamy but adding the boiling water and the cream.

Then, you can cook the other vegetables into the pressure cooker. In another 5 minutes they will be ready. It is difficult to say how much water you must put into the pressure cooker (maybe 2 tablespoons?)... if it is too much you will have some "broth" (vegetables are releasing their own water!!!).

The chef final touch is to put all the ingredients together with the too much "al dente" pasta and let it cook for another 3 minutes on fire, stirring it continuously.

Try it and tell me which method you prefer.

Ciao
Rachele

still to try...