illdothedisheslater

Bubble bubble pasta pot,
Boil me some pasta nice and hot.
I’m hungry and it’s time to sup.
Boil enough pasta to fill me up.

This is the magic chant of Strega Nona, the titular character from a book I distinctly remember having read to me as a child.  Strega Nona lived in a little village in Italy, and when she was hungry, she would sing to her magic pasta pot and it would make her spaghetti.  Then she’d sing another song to make it stop.  The village oaf, Big Anthony, tried to mess with her pot one day to show off and ended up flooding the town in noodles.  The nuns are so upset!

Why Strega Nona? I don’t know.  I was just thinking about this book recently and got a copy from a used book store.  And this is my 100th blog post (!!!), so I want to celebrate a little.  And I’m going to do, like, the lamest thing ever and try to create a copycat recipe of a menu item from a chain restaurant.  But it’s spaghetti!  Mr. Dishes and I frequent one Italian chain restaurant pretty regularly (no, it’s not the OG and how dare you?) and we agree they have the best Pomodoro sauce, which I’ve been trying to replicate for years.  No dice.

I’ve made the recipe posted on their website, I’ve written to corporate, I’ve exchanged correspondence with their social media/chef guy – the only thing I haven’t tried is getting a job there and spying on the cooks.  (Which would make an excellent blog post, now that I think about it…)

To be blunt, the restaurant’s website has a recipe posted that is bullshit.  The chef’s (polite and friendly – not his fault) replies to my questions were bullshit.  I appreciated his taking the time to answer and all that, but I still call shenanigans.  It’s merely a guide – a stepping stone to the truly magical sauce they serve at the restaurant.  Their published recipe calls for a whole onion, and basil leaves torn by hand.  What you get at the restaurant is more tomato-y and has tiny bits of minced basil.

I’m not going to publish “their” recipe, as it’s not great and I don’t know if I legally (or ethically) can (actually I’m not 100% sure about the legality of posting bits of Strega Nona, but will address that later*.)  But I decided to hold a taste test (Dishes’s First Taste Test!) to see just how close I could get.  Mr. Dishes and I got a take-out order of the spaghetti with extra sauce and headed home to do some detective work.  Well, I did.  He’s gotten back into The X-Files and helped mostly by eating and staying out of the way.  To the credit of the unnamed chain restaurant, their take-out is packaged beautifully, including half a loaf of bread, and even some olive oil and dried herbs for dipping.

My first stab at it took their recipe and added a little more liquid, a little sugar, and as a last desperate stab, a touch of baking soda to cut the acidity.

(Mine is on the right.) It was fine.  Good even, but not what I was looking for.  Mr. Dishes found it too sweet.  I smeared some of their sauce on a white plate and looked at it for a good long time.  I see tomatoes.  I see tiny bits of basil.  I see a lot of garlic.  Could it really be that simple?

Second try is ready to go and my sainted brother deigns to join us, as I’m not cooking any delicious meats today.  I set out a lovely spread.

First step is to double the olive oil – that’s one of the secrets of restaurant cooking – lots of oil, lots of butter – the things they don’t want you to know.  Look at your cookbooks – they all start with one or two tablespoons of oil, right?  Go to a restaurant where you can watch the cooks – they pour it in mighty glugs.

Second step is to double the garlic – here I’m using four cloves, minced, and also to halve the onion.  Ding ding ding!  The second taste test is practically a dead heat.  Mr. Dishes actually chooses my sauce as just slightly better.  My sainted brother correctly identifies the chain’s spaghetti, but agrees there’s little difference.

So I cracked the code, and here is, at last, my own recipe for chain restaurant Pomodoro Sauce –

One large can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced (crushed, pressed, whatever)
¼ cup diced onion – small dice.  Almost minced.
2 basil leaves, minced into tiny, tiny pieces
1 mighty glug of olive oil (4 tablespoons maybe?)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook spaghetti to al dente and set aside – reserve a cup of the pasta water.  Heat a mighty glug of olive oil and gently saute the onion until translucent.  Add the garlic and lower heat – don’t let it burn or brown.  Once the garlic approaches golden, add the tomatoes and stir.  Throw in some salt – more than you think you should – maybe a tablespoon.  Give it a sprinkle of pepper and stir in your basil.  Add cooked spaghetti to the pot and heat some more – until hot.  Add the pasta water to thin it out a bit.

That’s all.  Nothing groundbreaking, culinarily speaking, but this is an itch I’ve been trying to scratch for a long time now.  Success!  Unfortunately after three pasta meals in one day, I feel like Big Anthony, whose punishment for screwing around with Strega Nona’s magic pot is to eat all the spaghetti that he made, under the watchful eye of an upsettingly large rabbit.

* Strega Nona is a Caldecott Honor Book, written and illustrated by Tomie de Paola.  There is a whole series of Strega Nona stories, and I love her.  I hope this blog post does not violate any sort of copyright or trademark laws, about which I am clueless.  If it bugs anyone that I used the stories or pictures, please let me know and I’ll remove them in a hot minute, I promise.  I do have to note, however, that Strega Nona (who dabbled in love potions and witchcraft) was most likely the village abortionist.

Enough, enough, my pasta pot,
I have my pasta nice and hot.
So simmer down, my pot of clay
Until I’m hungry another day.