Pasta is usually made from durum wheat flour and takes its name presumably from Latin pasta, alatinisation of the Greek pasta which means “barley porridge”. When flour and water are mixed together, we get a pasty texture that can be moulded into different shapes. Those shapes are the names of different pasta. They mean something in Italian. Consider fusilli.
Fusilli, like many other shapes of pasta, were originally developed in Italy. People would take fresh spaghetti and roll them around thin rods to dry. When dried, they would take the spiral form and stay like that. The word itself comes from fuso which means spindle. It’s simply a roller or a pin serving as an axis on which something revolves. Pasta didn’t revolve on the rods, but it surely was spun around. And that’s how it got its name.
Cream and squash
But it’s not the name that we really care about, it’s how it looks on our plate and how it tastes in our mouth. How do you like your pasta? We recognize every recipe but today will share the one with cream and squash (or courgette, if you will). Prepare your fusilli as instructed. Heat 1 Tbsp of oil of your choice in a large pan and saute ½ finely sliced red onion, 1 grated clove of garlic with 1 diced medium squash until soft.
Add 100 g / 3 oz of the frozen peas and stir everything until the mixture warms up enough to accept 100 g / 3 oz of grated cheese and the same amount of cream. Season with salt and pepper, hold on medium-low heat for 5 minutes, transfer to a bowl and serve! Parsley, grated parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes, and whatnot are always at your service.
Put cheese on top
But what really can make you happy during colder winter days, is tuna pasta bake. Boil the water enough for one pack of 500 g / 1 lb of fusilli and cook according to the instructions. Drain, set aside, start preheating the oven to 180˚C/ 350˚F and start making the sauce. Melt 50 g / 2 oz of butter in a pan and add 50 g / 2 oz of flour. Mix until the roux (this is how the cooks call the butter-flour mixture) becomes golden. Stir in 500 ml / 16 oz of milk, season with salt, white pepper, a pinch of mustard powder and nutmeg. Continue cooking until the mixture thickens. Then remove the pan from the heat and stir in 200 g / 7 oz of cheese, 100 g / 3 oz of sweet corn and 100 g / 3 oz of peas, then add the pasta. Mix well.
Take your favourite baking dish and cover its bottom with the 400 g / 15 oz of drained tuna. This will be the first layer. Then add the pasta with the sauce, topping everything with extra grated cheese. Try to cover everything with it. Transfer the dish straight to the oven for 15-20 minutes until you see the sauce is bubbling hot and the cheese has a golden-brown crust. This is a sure sign of a lovely dinner that’s coming.
What do you think?