Pasta di Federico

A cousin from Italy was staying over and he wanted to cook one of his regular pastas that he whips up after a day at uni for him and his housemates. It reminded me of quick pastas my mum makes!

A dead simple pasta, but what makes this pasta so good is the little details in the cooking. Basically, take your time...and fry things off seperately. I don't like using too many pots for a quick pasta, but it is really worth it.

Federico, diced onions and then fried off very slowly on low heat with a lot of oil. This was the key...and decent amount of olive oil with the onions in a stone cold pan that he then brought to slow sizzle for about 15 minutes will he preped the rest.

Diced and sliced zucchini and red peppers...and some diced speck...or thick slice or proscuito or bacon. While the onions were cooking, again very lightly and slowly fried off the veg in a seperate pan...with a healthy lug of olive oil. You don't want the veg to sizzle as they hit the pan...let them soften the build to a sizzle...he even put a lid on to steam/sizzle.

When the onions were ready, he added a tin of tomatoes and threw the pasta...once the sauce began to boil, he added the veg and fried off the proscuito, again seperately. Then added the proscuito to the sauce.

Once the pasta was cooked, added it the the sauce in the pan and tossed it around. A very lightly sauced pasta and not too dense with vegetables. But the extra flavour created by the oil was delicious.

The key to this pasta is taking your time...and keeping things to a low heat. It still will only take about 20 to 25 minutes to make. So well worth it! Delicious.