Pasta cakes
"peak What I Want In A Recipe" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen
I'm trying to clear my email inbox a bit. Some of the emails in there are newsletters from various foodie sources, so today I checked the oldest of these, a newsletter from Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen which celebrated 20 years of writing her blog by posting 20 of what she considered to be the 20 most iconic recipes - the 'peak What I Want in a Recipe' thing that I have quoted above. There are some pretty good ones in there, but this one in particular caught my eye. It's called Winter squash and spinach pasta bake - and not only did it catch my eye, but I also thought there might be something to be said about pasta cakes in the process.
Before I go there however, there are two things - the quote at the top and this one too:
"I like shiny new recipes. My favorite thing to cook will always be the last new thing I made."
which I will mention because both of those statements probably are worth a bit of exploration. 'What I want in a recipe' I shall have to think about some more I think, because that surely is going to vary according to a whole number of things. 'Shiny new recipes' ? I shall have to think about that too. Suffice to say for now that these are the sorts of little throwaway statements that keep me reading her newsletters because I have to say that some of the recipes pop up often.
So back to her very tempting look pasta cake which she admits was inspired by Ottolenghi's Pasta butternut squash cake below and an Instagram photograph from the cook of Simple, Plain and Plenty - who had made it.
Ottolenghi's ingredients are not the same - no spinach, but tomatoes - well there are more differences - but I think it was the idea that grabbed Deb Perelman's attention, because it's more or less a case of just throwing everything into a cake tin, including your uncooked pasta, mixing it all together and baking in the oven until crunchy on top and succulent in the middle.
In his latest book Simple Too Ottolenghi has a recipe for Diavolo pasta pie which goes a little further in that the flavours include harissa and fennel as well as the more usual olives, garlic, passata and roasted red peppers. The recipe is not online as yet, and only one person seems to have made it, but they merely posted a photograph - not this one which is the one from the book. That's not pastry half covering the top by the way - just some of the baking paper that lined the pan - because these cakes are of course upside down affairs.
In my head I thought that pasta cakes had become a real thing, and they sort of have, but more because of those 'cakes' consisting of stuffed upright pacchieri or rigatoni - as described in my post "Stuff the pacchieri" (or not) - or not because it's an incredibly tricky process to stuff those tubes and not one I shall be trying again.
So first of all, still thinking that this was a trendy thing, I went looking for exciting examples - but somewhat disappointingly only found a few: Cacio e pepe pasta pie - Spoon, Fork, Bacon; Cake tin carbonara - Australian Eggs with Jamie Oliver also going the carbonara route with his Carbonara cake - which he describes as "a delightfully simple, luxurious, yet slightly trashy meal that is sure to wow everyone.". He also had a Spaghetti cake - Jamie Oliver/Good to Know.
They all look pretty similar don't they, and basically I think you just make your pasta mix - with a runny sauce, and also some eggs, combine it with some pasta either partially cooked or not cooked at all; stuff it into a cake tin and bake it in the oven.
At this stage I started to wonder whether this was a new thing we have dreamt up in the modern spirit of improvisation, but then found Pastiera Napolitana (Neopolitan ricotta and pasta pie) on the The Pasta Project website, where I found this nice origin legend:
"There is a legend about some fishermen who were stuck at sea because of a sudden storm. Once they managed to return to land, people asked them how they had been able to manage for such a long time. They replied that they had been able to eat ‘Pasta di Ieri’ (yesterday’s pasta) made with ricotta, eggs, wheat and herbs! Hence the name pastiera!"
However, as I read on I found that it was an Easter speciality and that actually it is a sweet thing. Not what I was looking for. And at this point I almost gave up until I found on the Not Quite Nigella website possibly the most magnificent version of them all - Timpano together with the explanation that this is from Sicily and that it was originally a way to use up leftover bolognese. The name comes from 'tamburo' which means 'drum' - which I guess is the shape shown here, although I have a feeling that it is not always made in a ring cake tin.
Lorraine Elliott (Not Quite Nigella) has made hers look magnificent by lining her tin with fried eggplant slices, but I gather this is normally a fridge-raid kind of dish. And really it's not that hard to make a humble mix of this and that look absolutely magnificent is it?
YEARS GONE BY
October 27
2025 - Bagatelles
2024 - Nothing
2023 - Nothing
2022 - Biscoff for a rainy day
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
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