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Spaghetti alla Marinara (Sailor's Spaghetti)

 
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Stragatto
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:51 pm    Post subject: Spaghetti alla Marinara (Sailor's Spaghetti) Reply with quote

Being I an Italian engineer, what I can do at my best for contributing to this site should be to post some pasta recipes. As any good engineer should do, I will try to follow the rule "Keep it simple". And indeed, the majority of pasta recipes are very simple ones.
I will start with one of the simplest and quickiest: "Spaghetti alla marinara".
The name of this very old and traditional recipe could be translated as "Sailor's spaghetti", but it is not (as one could be expecting) a fish or seafood recipe. This name (I suppose) raises from the fact that it is based on few and portable ingredients, easily carried on Mediterranean fishing boats and available in every harbour, and that is a very quick (although savourful) preparation, so it was (and is) a favourite dish for fishermen and sailors.

Ingredients (for two):
- 300 gr. spaghetti
- 4 medium/small tomatoes
- 2 cloves of garlic
- half glass of olive oil
- 2 small chili peppers
- parmesan cheese.
- salt

1) Cooking spaghetti (in the Italian way):
- Put the salt in the water (2 teaspoonful for each liter).
- Bring to boiling.
- Put the spaghetti in the boiling water.
- Leave them boiling for exactly 9 minutes.

- Now the problem is how to extract the boiled spaghetti from the boiling water.
I use a special spoon with many teeth and holes in the bottom, that is very practical, but maybe is not easily available out of Italy. The traditional way requires another special tool (scolapasta), that is a large cup with many holes, so that one can pour inside it all the content of the pot, and the water can flow away, leaving the spaghetti. In absence of any tool, anyway, it is possible to pour away the excess water, and, with some patience, to take the spaghetti from the pot with a simple fork.

2) "Marinara" sauce:
- While the water for spaghetti is going to boil, put the oil in a rather large pan.
- Slice each garlic clove into 2 parts and put them into the pan.
- Fry the garlic (but don't allow it to become brown nor yellow !)
- While the garlic is frying, slice the tomatoes into the pan.
- put into the pan the chili peppers.
- Leave all cooking until the tomatoes are dissolving, smashing them with a fork.

3) The end:
- Put the spaghetti into the pan with the sauce and mix all.
- Put the spaghetti in the dishes, and if you have some leaves of fresh basil put one or two leaves on the top.
- Serve with freshly grinded parmesan cheese.
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chefdavide
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:33 am    Post subject: Spaghetti alla Marinara Reply with quote

(1) Chopped Black olives must be used-
(2) Chopped Capers must Be used
(3) No Chili
(4) Basil like all herbs must be omitted from the recipe before serving-
(5) Marinara sauce must be made first and allowed to sit for 45 minutes before serving- Cheese is never served on a Spaghetti alla Marinara Sauce-

If one wishes to use the name "Spaghetti alla Marinara" Then for uniformity of recipe world wide - a standard set application must prevail-You cannot possibly teach apprentices worldwide a recipe which has been implied incorrectly- Hence "Italian Classical Cookery"is indeed on the verge of dissapearing altogether-because of the many incorrect variants of italian recipes that has now taken over the classical application-

Chef Davide
Author: "The Art and Science of Italian cookery"
Expert: Classical Italian Cookery
As prescribed by "The Italian academy of Cookery, Rome italy:
www.chefdavide.freeservers.com
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DuxIl



Joined: 23 Sep 2005
Posts: 15
Location: Duxbury, Massachusetts

PostPosted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:06 pm    Post subject: Oh, please Reply with quote

Chef Davide, I was classically trained in Switzerland (probably before you were born). As the French themselves will tell you and as Escoffier and Careme, were they alive today, would have agreed:

The original purpose of so-called "classical cuisine" was to allow for some standardization in cookery so that travellers could expect a "reasonable facsimile" of something they liked wherever they went, not to elevate it to the height of snobbery, which your posts seem to do. Improvisations and substitutions have always been a necessity in cooking.

It is nice to refer to the original and see how it is "supposed" to be, but true and genuine Italian and French cooking are still alive and well everywhere, albeit with some "personalizations."

Instead of condemning the wonderful renaissance in cooking that is taking place in countries that were once barren of anything beyond "tv dinners," you might want to help educate hapless Americans (and others) on the fine point that if you make substitutions or deviate from the "classic" recipe, then you may no longer actually call a dish by its given name. That means that if you are using chili peppers in a Marinara, it is no longer classic Marinara, but Marinara alla X (X being your name).

To define all classical cooking by the narrow range of recipes the greats such as Careme, Escoffier, Beard, Point, Pauli and a handfull of others is to condemn it to death. Here's a good starting reference on truly great classical chefs: http://www.cuisinearts.com/chefs_hall_of_fame/page_1.php
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nina



Joined: 23 Oct 2005
Posts: 9
Location: australia

PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:05 am    Post subject: Stragatto Reply with quote

I remember Marinara just as you have described. I am alergic to fish so i remember the first time i was told that marinara was off the menu for me as it had to contain fish. I think this is a modern idea. i never had fish in my marinara when my nannie made it for me . Her heritage and italianess are undesputable.
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Bruce37256



Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 8:36 am    Post subject: Old days Reply with quote

chefdavide wrote:
(1) Chopped Black olives must be used-


You know what we used to say back in the old days?... I will PM it in a sec.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:47 am    Post subject: Re: Stragatto Reply with quote

nina wrote:
I remember Marinara just as you have described. I am allergic to fish so i remember the first time i was told that marinara was off the menu for me as it had to contain fish. I think this is a modern idea. i never had fish in my marinara when my nannie made it for me . Her heritage and italianess are undesputable.


In Italian marinara It refers to the sea... check a dictionary, no other meaning is possible, unless you are cooking sailors.

Just what did you have in your non seafood marinara ????????
the original always contains and is based on seafood.
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