Melissa Clark and NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe pose with the tacky baked pasta.
Shannon Rhoades/NPR
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Shannon Rhoades/NPR
Melissa Clark and NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe pose with the tacky baked pasta.
Shannon Rhoades/NPR
In Melissa Clark’s kitchen — which she calls “messy,” however is definitely stunning — cooking dinner is enjoyable, not fussy, ideally executed whereas listening to the B-52s, and greatest when it takes as few dishes as attainable.
Clark, whose New York Instances column known as “A Good Appetite,” has written dozens of cookbooks. In her newest — Dinner in One — Clark affords 100 recipes that may be made in a single container, be it pot, bowl, skillet or gradual cooker.
“Think about like writing a haiku,” Clark says. “You wish to categorical the most important thought with the fewest quantity of phrases. … The top aim was once I’m completed cooking, there’s like three issues within the sink.”
There are recipes on this cookbook for miso-glazed salmon with roasted sugar snap peas, cheaters hen and dumplings, even one-bowl desserts.
NPR needed to place Dinner in One to the take a look at, so Clark selected a recipe to check out: tacky baked pasta.
Dinner in One
Linda Xiao/Clarkson Potter
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Linda Xiao/Clarkson Potter
“Usually if you make a baked pasta, you boil the pasta in a single pot, you drain it in a colander, so due to this fact messing up two issues already,” she explains. “However what I am doing right here is I will cook dinner the pasta … proper within the sauce.”
Getting all the substances prepared
First, Clark strains up all the substances on the counter together with pasta, tomatoes, three sorts of cheese, sausage, and spices and herbs from not one however three jam-packed spice drawers.
“This is one other factor,” she says, pulling out oregano, purple pepper flakes, fennel, garlic and bay leaves. “You possibly can go away half of those herbs out. It will style the identical.”
That is the factor about this cookbook — it isn’t one bit fussy, and all the recipes are versatile. If you wish to add greens to this dish, Clark suggests tossing in spinach. In case you’re lactose illiberal, Clark says add extra sausage and lower out the cheese. Hate slicing garlic? Use some from a jar!
“If it tastes good, it isn’t dangerous,” she says.
How she acquired her begin
Earlier than she was the winner of a number of James Beard awards, Clark was a coat-checker and a hostess at a restaurant referred to as American Place. That job was her first peek behind the scenes at knowledgeable kitchen.
“I knew I needed to be a meals author at that time,” she says. “This was proper in the beginning of meals blogs popping out on the web. … And I assumed, together with a variety of different individuals, hey, you already know, I would like meals to be my lens for wanting on the world. I would like meals to be how I inform my story and the way I inform different individuals’s tales. … To essentially perceive somebody, to grasp their soul and their thoughts, I actually really feel like it’s worthwhile to see what they eat.”
So what does her soul say?
“Undoubtedly says I grew up in Brooklyn,” Clark says. “Particularly when you catch me on a bagels and lox Sunday.”
A take a look at the ultimate product of the NPR take a look at of the tacky baked pasta.
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Shannon Rhoades/NPR
For the recipe take a look at, Clark pulls a 12-inch skillet off the wall, provides the olive oil, and the sausage, which she squeezes out of its casing like toothpaste. It drops, scorching, into the pan. She cooks the sausage till it has a pleasant, browned crust.
“That brown crust on a sausage is what is going on to offer you further taste,” she explains.
In the meantime, she crushes the fennel with a mortar and pestle and provides that, plus the garlic — thinly sliced, not from a jar — and the opposite spices and herbs.
“I am additionally going so as to add some salt proper now,” Clark says. “As a result of I would like the garlic to soak up it. In case you add salt as you go, it seasons it higher fairly than including it all of sudden.”
She’s full of those sorts of cooking gems.
One other instance: “If one thing smells good to you, you will most likely just like the style.”
And: “What grows collectively goes collectively.”
Explaining issues — like how thinly slicing the garlic will make it style sweeter within the dish — is one in all Clark’s favourite elements of what she does.
“I really like speaking to individuals about meals and answering questions and determining how they’re snug cooking and the way I could make it simpler for them,” she says. “I actually love cooking. I imply, I actually do. And I actually need everybody else to like it, too.”
And it is OK to not cook dinner, too
However do not get her improper — generally she prefers takeout similar to everybody else.
“I love to do takeout on issues that takeout does higher than me,” she says. “Like sushi. Takeout does sushi higher than me. I am not afraid to inform you.”
Clark pours the tomatoes into the pan, and as soon as that sauce has gotten thick, she provides the pasta. Then she folds in a couple of third of the mozzarella, plops the remainder on prime, provides spoonfuls of ricotta, then somewhat extra ricotta and sprinkles the entire thing with Parmesan.
Lastly, she sticks the skillet within the oven to bake.
Clark counts what number of utensils she used for this dish. The full?
- A garlic slicer
- knife
- picket spoon
- measuring spoon
- mortar and
- pestle
- chopping board
- and the pan.
The actual take a look at, although, is the way it tastes.
When the cheese is brown and effervescent, Clark takes the skillet out of the oven, plucks some recent basil, and serves the pasta on her again deck, overlooking the backyard.
“Two thumbs up?”
Two thumbs up.
Tacky Baked Pasta with Tomato, Sausage, and Ricotta
Like a cross between baked ziti and a meaty lasagna, this golden-topped pasta is wealthy with brawny bits of sausage, creamy ricotta, and crushed tomatoes, all seasoned with loads of garlic, oregano, and fennel seed. It is a licensed crowd-pleaser that is simple to adapt.
SERVES 4
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 ounces scorching or gentle Italian sausage (pork, hen, or turkey)
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Pinch of crushed purple pepper flakes (optionally available), plus extra for serving
1 (28-ounce) can entire peeled tomatoes
1 (14-ounce) can crushed or strained tomatoes
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons kosher salt
12 ounces pasta (small shells, farfalle, or different small form)
8 ounces recent mozzarella, torn into bite-size items
6 ounces (about ¾ cup) whole-milk ricotta
⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly floor black pepper, for serving
¼ cup slivered recent basil
DIRECTIONS
1. Warmth the oven to 425ºF.
2. In a 12-inch ovenproof skillet or Dutch oven, warmth the oil over medium-high warmth. Take away the casings from the sausage and crumble the meat into skillet, utilizing a spoon to interrupt it up. Prepare dinner, stirring, till it is beginning to brown, 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Utilizing a mortar and pestle or the flat aspect of a chef’s knife and a chopping board, evenly crush the fennel seeds. Stir them into the pan together with the garlic, oregano, and purple pepper flakes, if utilizing, and cook dinner one other 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Stir in the entire tomatoes, utilizing a spoon to interrupt them up. Add the crushed tomatoes, bay leaves, and salt and convey to a simmer. Prepare dinner for 10 minutes to thicken it barely.
5. Stir within the pasta and 1 cup water and return the sauce to a simmer. Prepare dinner for two minutes, stirring to verify the pasta does not follow the pan. Take away from the warmth, take away the bay leaves, and fold in a 3rd of the mozzarella.
6. Prime the pasta with the remaining mozzarella and dollops of ricotta. Sprinkle with the Parmesan. Bake till the pasta is tender when poked with a fork, and the cheese is bubbly and golden, 18 to 22 minutes. (If you would like a browner topping, run the pan underneath the broiler for 1 to 2 minutes.) Let cool barely earlier than serving with black pepper and basil on prime, and extra purple pepper flakes on the aspect.
VEGETARIAN UPGRADE
You possibly can omit the sausage fully or substitute a plant-based sausage.
VEG IT UP
You possibly can add 8 ounces of sliced mushrooms together with the sausage in Step 2. Improve the cook dinner time till the moisture evaporates from the pan and all the pieces may be very browned.
