Drunken Pasta
November 2nd, 2009
So we’re back from Italy and despite stuffing ourselves throughout Tuscany and Rome, upon our return, we immediately wanted to try and make a few dishes we had over there. Our first night in Florence, we had a massive steak. We were ordering in kilos so ended up with (we think) just over three pounds of pre-cooked steak for the two of us. Needless to say, we still managed to finish it. Before the steak, we had a dish of drunken pasta, it was basically spaghetti cooked in red wine rather than in water. While extremely flavorful, the dish was a bit of a single note with an intense red wine flavor and not much else. This recipe, adapted from here adds in a few extra flavors.
Ingredients
- 1 package (1 pound) of long cut pasta (we used spaghetti)
- 1/4 pound of pancetta
- 1 cup of mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1 pound of thawed frozen spinach (can certainly use fresh if you prefer)
- 1 bottle of red wine
- olive oil
- 6 cloves of garlic, finely diced
- Parmigiano-reggiano
- Cracked black pepper
- Crushed red pepper
First up, you need to cook the pancetta. You’ll probably get the meat in a decent size block, which you’ll need to break down. Slice the pancetta into approximately 1/4 inch thick slices and then cut the slices into small cubes. In a large pan or pot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook down until the pancetta begins to brown and crisp, stirring occasionally for 5-8 minutes.
When lightly browned, remove the pancetta and drain on a paper-towel-lined plate.
As the pancetta is finishing, add the bottle of red wine to a large pot and add about 3 cups of water. Add a handful of salt for flavor and bring to a boil. Given the novelty of it, the look and smell of a pot of boiling red wine is pretty cool.
Add the pasta and cook for roughly one minute less than the instructions advise. There will be some additional cooking of the pasta later on so you want to leave it somewhat al dente at this point.
When complete, remove and strain the pasta but retain the cooking liquid. Given the strong flavors in this cooking liquid from the wine and the starchiness from the pasta it will make a good addition later.
In the same pan as the pancetta, add the mushrooms, and begin to cook down.
After 3-4 minutes as the mushrooms begin to lose some of their water content, add the garlic. Stir in black and red pepper to taste.
After an additional 2-3 minutes, the mushrooms will have cooked down and reduced considerably in size. As they begin to lightly brown, prepare the spinach by draining it of any excess water. Add the spinach to the pan and mix together thoroughly.
Once heated through, add two ladles of the pasta cooking liquid and stir together over medium-high heat.
Add the pasta and stir together again. Once everything is heated through, add a few handfuls of the grated cheese and pancetta and stir together.
At this point you’re ready to go. We made a little meatloaf as well which we ate with it. Overall, the flavors came out pretty well. The red wine was extremely pleasant and very good, but this was an improvement over the version we had in Florence by introducing other flavors. The pancetta added a nice crispness while the garilc, mushrooms and red pepper added some counterbalancing flavors to the red wine.
