How to please an Italian

Have you ever lived with an Italian and cooked pasta for him or her? Believe me, it’s intimidating. It's at least as intimidating as a job interview or a first kiss. You are terribly worried you will fail and that it will all become very embarrassing. Before I met my (Italian) boyfriend I was cooking and eating pasta on a regular basis and thought that both, the cooking and the eating part were quite straight forward. Little did I know!!! When I met Mike, he introduced me to a whole new world. A world of complicated rules, of do's and dont's. Lot's of dont's I tell you. Don't eat pasta with a spoon! Don't put parmesan cheese on pasta with sea food! Don't use any pasta with any sauce (there's a whole philosophy behind which shape and size of the pasta goes with which type of sauce). Now, you could say: who cares. But that's certainly not how Italians feel about it. And neither does my boyfriend. Alas, the more I learned about how to correctly consume pasta, the more intimidated I got about doing it the wrong way. I'm that type of girl. I really like to do things the way they are supposed to be (at least most of the time...).

Therefore in the early days of our relationship, Mike was doing all the pasta cooking and I did all other cooking. Since Mike is a good cook it was a good deal and for quite some time we kept it at that. I was watching and eating and learning all these strange rules. And then it started to itch me. I realized that I could not and would not give up making pasta and so I began to slowly but surely reconquer the territory. At first, I would simply put the water to boil. You think that's fool proof? It's not, believe me. Over- or (even worse) undersalting the water are big, enormous DONT'S! Once I mastered that trick I would test whether the pasta was al dente. Or (I agree, a rather pathetic step) heat a ready-made Barilla pasta sauce on a busy week night when we would come home from work starving. And one brave night, three or so years into our relationship, I did the whole thing for the first time again: I made a full-fledged pasta dinner and served it. Mike had a fork full, another one and while I gazed at him anxiously he said: "Not bad. Not bad at all." I sighed in relief.

It is still Mike who is cooking most of the pasta in this household. But every now and then I jump in with a new sauce or an idea. Sometimes we are even making our own pasta together (more about this another time). The recipe I want to share with you today is one of those that I feel comfortable with making for Italians. The basis is a richly-flavored walnut pesto. The beauty of it is that you can make it well in advance and store it in the fridge. In a jar with a little bit of oil on the top it keeps in the fridge for up to three weeks. It is therefore the perfect weeknight dinner staple since all you have to do is adding it to hot pasta just as such or mix it with whatever you feel like. Heidi and I used it as the basis for a courgettes-walnut lasagna one night and it was delicious. But usually when I make it for us for dinner, I mix the pesto with a bit of ricotta and fresh parsley and basil. With a generous amount of parmigiano reggiano on top of it even the most picky Italian should be pleased.

Tip: To sterilize your jars, wash them in hot soapy water or in a dishwasher, and rinse them well. Place the jars and the lids on a baking tray and dry in a warm oven for at least 20 minutes. Don't use a tea towel. Leave to cool before filling in the pesto.

Walnut Pesto with Ricotta
Adapted from Bill Granger

Serves 4-6

For the Walnut Pesto
125g/1 cup walnuts
2 garlic cloves, chopped
50g/1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1 handful of flat parsley leaves, chopped
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To Serve
500g of long pasta, such as tripoline (my favorite), pappardelle, or fettucine or (we use De Cecco pasta)
100 g Ricotta
1 teaspoon fresh basil, finely chopped
1 teaspoon fresh, flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Parmesan, grated
Olive Oil


Preheat oven to 150°C. Spread the walnuts on a lined baking sheet and toast in the oven until fragrant, for about 10-15 minutes. Take out, let cool a little and chop them, Place walnuts, parmesan, parsley in a food processor and mix until well blended. With the mixer running, add olive oil a little at a time until pesto has a smooth consistency. Season generously with salt and pepper. Store in sterilized jar (see above).

To serve, cook pasta al dente in salted water. In the meantime, mix the pesto with the ricotta in a big bow. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of the hot pasta water to get a smooth consistency (you might need more or less, depending on how thick your pesto is, so you might want to reserve some of the pasta water). Drain the pasta, don't shake off all the excess water and immediately transfer to the bowl with the pesto-ricotta mixture. Mix well and add the reserved pasta water if the mixture is to dry. Add the parsley and basil, mix one more time and serve immediately with parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.