April 7
Cavatelli Imported Direct from Brooklyn
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- Cavatelli with Mushroom Tomato Sauce [View Recipe]
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Ingredients
- 1 pound pasta
- 1.5 teaspoons oil (divided)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 5 ounces mushrooms (wiped with damp cloth)
- .5 cup onion (chopped)
- 1 28 ounce can tomatoes
- .5 teaspoon basil
- 1 3-inch stem parsley (cleaned and leaves removed)
- salt & pepper
- hot pepper flakes
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tablespoons parsley (cleaned and chopped)
- cheese (freshly grated)
Instructions
We start by heating a large pot of water on the stove for our pasta.
We put 1 teaspoon of olive oil in our dutch oven (a large heavy bottomed pot with a lid).
We smash our garlic cloves on our cutting board, remove and discard the peels, and place the smashed cloves into the oil. We cook gently, uncovered, on medium-low heat. We just want to infuse the oil with the garlic, we do not want the cloves to brown.
Meanwhile, we slice the mushrooms and halve each slice. When the garlic is starting to sizzle, we remove them to a clean plate with our tongs and reserve. We add the mushrooms and cook over medium heat for a few minutes until they are browned and have released their liquid. We pour the cooked mushrooms onto another clean plate and cover with aluminum foil. Then we add the rest of the olive oil to the dutch oven along with the chopped onions and sauté on medium-low heat until translucent. This takes about 5 more minutes.
We remove the dutch oven from the heat, and spoon the onions and smashed garlic into our blender. We pour the tomato liquid from the can of tomatoes into the dutch oven, and put the whole tomatoes into the blender. We purée the tomatoes with the onions and garlic until smooth.
We pour the puréed sauce into our dutch oven and add the dried basil, fresh parsley stem, salt & pepper, hot pepper flakes, and a bay leaf. We then simmer the sauce for about 15 minutes, partially covered, over medium low heat.
When the sauce has cooked for a couple of minutes, the water for the pasta is boiling. We add some salt and the frozen cavatelli. We stir and taste after 8 minutes. It still is quite hard so we keep checking it every minute or two. After about 12 minutes, the pasta is cooked. We drain it in our colander and put the pasta back in the drained pot. We add a little of the sauce to the pasta to coat and set aside for a minute while we finish the sauce.
We add the mushrooms and chopped parsley to the sauce, taste for salt and pepper, and turn off the heat.
We serve the cavatelli with the mushroom sauce and top with Locatelli cheese.
- Garlic Bread, made from fresh Brooklyn bread
- Peas
The trip back and forth to Brooklyn was not particularly pleasant. The kids did remarkably well, all things considered. On the way up, we sat at a dead stop for 45 minutes just south of the Delaware border (a rather bad accident, unfortunately). That prevented us from our normal stopover at the Cracker Barrel.
For the return trip, our daughter had her heart set on a Happy Meal from "Old McDonald's". When we had nearly reached the exit, our daughter asked, "What would we do if something got stuck in my ear?" Chris, thinking this was a continuation of an earlier conversation regarding ear wax, answered, "We'll clean it out with a Q-tip when we get home."
The words "stuck" and "ear" did not make it past Robin's mommy radar. She quickly determined that our daughter's stick on earring had migrated from her ear lobe into her ear. After some tense minutes driving near Exit 4, we obtained some tweezers from a local drug store. Robin was able to (very carefully) remove the earring and all was well.
In one of those lemon from lemonade moments in life, we even found a Whole Foods near the drug store where Chris was able to get a turkey wrap and some coffee.
All in all, the trip was definitely worth it - and not just for the pasta and cookies that we got. The kids had a great time showing off for their great grandparents and we enjoyed their company. Hopefully we can do it again over the summer.