Italian cuisine cannot be imagined without spaghetti. Pasta with various sauces is known all over the world as a hearty, tasty and very easy to prepare dish that does not require special products and skills, but has a very recognizable Italian taste.
Italian spaghetti is characterized by a very quick preparation. First, cooking pasta is, in principle, quite easy and quick. And secondly, one of the basic principles of Italian cuisine is to preserve the natural taste of products with minimal heat treatment.
In fact, all spaghetti recipes rarely exceed 20-25 minutes in time, so the dish can be recommended as a daily dish.
By the word spaghetti it is customary to mean a certain type of pasta: round products made of durum wheat with a diameter of 2 mm and a length of 15 cm. All other types of pasta are not spaghetti, and you can no longer call them that. Ideally, the spaghetti should not be crumbled when cooking, it should be long and should be eaten on a fork. Fortunately, Russian stores sell a large number of Italian and Russian-made spaghetti types.
The simplest classic spaghetti recipe is spaghetti with tomatoes and cheese. For 4 servings of the dish, you will need the following ingredients: 1 pack (300 g) of spaghetti, 4-5 large tomatoes, half a large onion, 200-250 g of cheese, basil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Ripe, "fleshy" large tomatoes are ideal.
Boil the spaghetti in boiling salted water. Usually, the required cooking time is indicated on the package, but it rarely exceeds 5 minutes. Do not forget that classic Italian pasta should never be boiled over, they must be hard.
While the pasta is boiling, peel the tomatoes and chop them finely. The onion should also be chopped quite finely as it will give the tomato paste flavor and will not be noticeable. Fry onions and tomatoes in a hot pan with a medium amount of vegetable oil. After the tomatoes turn into a homogeneous gruel, reduce the heat to a minimum, add salt, add pepper and spices, chopped fresh or dried basil, oregano and, covered with a lid, leave for another 10-15 minutes.
While the sauce is cooking, you can grate the cheese on a medium grater. Ideally, in addition to the usual hard cheese, Parmesan should be added to the finished spaghetti, but its absence will not become critical. After the tomato sauce is cooked, mix the pre-cooked spaghetti with it and let it stand for 1-2 minutes. The finished dish is laid out on flat plates and sprinkled with grated cheese on top. You can decorate it with a couple of basil leaves (purple basil is ideal for taste) and cherry tomatoes.
Plates for ready-made spaghetti should be large and flat. It is aesthetically pleasing and convenient, as the pasta sauce can fly apart when eaten.
Other recipes for making spaghetti with tomato paste and cheese include mushrooms, chicken, beef, or pork, which must be sautéed in the same skillet before cooking the tomatoes in it. In addition to these ingredients, you can add finely chopped garlic and various herbs (thyme, rosemary, etc.).
Serve spaghetti with cheese and tomato with chilled white wine. Homemade lemonades and berry fruit drinks, as well as chilled tea, are ideal for non-alcoholic drinks.
