My lil’ brother Greg sent me the following email one night after I requested his recipe following a yummy dinner he served. He learned how to make this while living with a guy from Italy, who passed along a few culinary secrets. This dinner was fabulous, and would be equally yummy without any meat added. The recipe he sent was too funny as written, so I’ve included it here verbatim. I have no idea what the actual name of the recipe is; Greg was the one who titled it as above. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, no? Yes. It’s a very delicious ensemble.
“ok, heres what you do
probably start by cooking the bacon. (If you are using a really lean meat,
like lean ground beef you always add the raw meat to the pasta sauce after
the onions and garlic are mostly cooked, then cook it all together. But
you don’t want your sauce full of bacon grease)
you want the bacon to be in small pieces. probably best to cut it up
before cooking it. Ideally you find bacon cubes from the store, instead of
strips, but I haven’t seen that in the states yet.
cook the bacon, drain off grease. set the bacon aside.
chop onion and garlic ( I usually use half an onion for 2 people plus
maybe two cloves of garlic)
You could also include bell peppers (very tasty) or other vegetables or
spicy indian peppers or things.
Boil enough pasta.
over medium heat, put enough olive oil in a large-ish frying pan to cover
the bottom, plus a bit more. Add onion, garlic, peppers and whatever else
you are putting in. cook until onions are browned. add bacon. add more
olive oil, the italians do it. add pepper and salt to taste. Add basil and
oregano. (probably add a lot. taste it though) the longer you leave all
this simmering, the more the taste of the herbs blends together and the
more wonderful the end creation tastes.
Mix the pasta cooked to perfection (al dente, of course, literally meaning
‘at the tooth’ really meaning not soggy, still a little bit hard, but more
than edible) into everything else that is in your frying pan. Mix it all
really well. If it seems to dry add more olive oil ( think of it like a
vinegar and oil dressing) you want it to all be covered, but you don’t
really want it to be pasta in oil soup. But use a lot of olive oil.
Just before serving, mix in feta cheese. more is better than less. because
it tastes good.
perfecto!!
it is good served with salad and bread. If you aren’t too olive oiled out,
you could serve fancy european bread with bowls of olive oil mixed with
basil and oregano like they do at fancy italian restaurants.
if this doesn’t make any sense, just call me. I don’t think I forgot any
important steps.
from the kitchen of Gregorio”
