
Lidia's Kitchen
Salt Your Pasta Water!
11/17/2021 | 26m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Lidia shows how to salt, save and sauce the way the Italians do!
Lidia shows how to salt, save and sauce the way the Italians do! Lidia prepares a Pasta Primavera “New School” with creamy pesto loaded with fresh vegetables. Then, her grandson Ethan talks about his recent preparation of her Penne with Vodka Sauce. Lidia’s last recipe is a green and delicious pasta dish starring Cavatappi with Asparagus and Spinach Pesto.
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Lidia's Kitchen is presented by your local public television station.
Distributed nationally by American Public Television
Lidia's Kitchen
Salt Your Pasta Water!
11/17/2021 | 26m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Lidia shows how to salt, save and sauce the way the Italians do! Lidia prepares a Pasta Primavera “New School” with creamy pesto loaded with fresh vegetables. Then, her grandson Ethan talks about his recent preparation of her Penne with Vodka Sauce. Lidia’s last recipe is a green and delicious pasta dish starring Cavatappi with Asparagus and Spinach Pesto.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipLIDIA: Buongiorno.
I'm Lidia Bastianich, and teaching you about Italian food has always been my passion.
It has always been about cooking together and ultimately building your confidence in the kitchen.
So what does that mean?
You got to cook it yourselves.
For me, food is about delicious flavors... Che bellezza!
...comforting memories, and most of all, family.
Tutti a tavola a mangiare!
ANNOUNCER: Funding provided by... ANNOUNCER: At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.
Cento -- Trust your family with our family.
ANNOUNCER: Authentic and original -- Amarena Fabbri.
A taste of Italy for brunch with family and friends.
Amarena Fabbri -- the original wild cherries in syrup.
ANNOUNCER: Grana Padano -- authentic, Italian, rich in tradition, yet contemporary.
ANNOUNCER: For over 140 years, Auricchio traditional handcrafted provolone.
Made in Italy.
ANNOUNCER: Olitalia, "From chef to chef."
ANNOUNCER: And by... LIDIA: It's pasta time again, so don't forget -- salt your water, save some pasta water, and dress your pasta just like the Italians do.
My kids loved pasta primavera growing up, and I still make it today, dressed with creamy pesto and loaded with fresh vegetables.
A surprising combination of asparagus, spinach, parsley, and pistachios make this vibrant green pesto, which I will use to dress up cavatappi pasta.
Butta la pasta.
Salt your pasta water.
Pasta is at the basis of the Italian cuisine.
When you say, "Let's go eat Italian," I'm sure the first flash is some sort of pasta.
Spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, baked ziti, something.
And it's not that the Italians in Italy eat mounds of pasta.
Actually, they eat selective.
Due forchetta -- two forkfuls.
Or they eat it before their main course.
So, it's an element added to their meal.
It gratifies us.
You know, a mouthful of pasta, for me.
it kind of balances me.
It zens me out.
So, pasta is an element for you to really sort of explore in your kitchen ever more and celebrate Italy.
Pasta primavera "new school."
In my garden, making pasta primavera.
Lots of vegetables.
What could be better than that?
And this is a recipe that goes kind of back to the '80s.
It was one of the new waves of Italian recipes, shall we say less tomatoey, that were coming into the States.
But, first of all, let's put the pasta in, because by the time the pasta is cooked, we will make the sauce.
These are fusilli, fusilloni.
And look how big they are.
I thought it would be just nice to have some different pasta.
Let's put that in salted water.
Now, the water is boiling, has salt.
No oil in the water.
I always tell you that, and I want you to follow it, because then the pasta, if you put the oil in there, the pasta gets coated with the oil, and it doesn't absorb the sauce.
When it's done, we'll finish it in the sauce.
Let's start with the sauce.
A little bit of olive oil in the pan.
Let's put some garlic.
I'm going to just crush the garlic, like that.
So, this way, it gives off its flavor just like that.
But I can pick it out when I'm finished with the sauce.
In it, we'll throw the vegetables.
So what do I have?
I have string beans, asparagus.
I have peas, I have tomatoes, scallions, basil, some pesto.
So the first thing that goes in is the things that take longer to cook.
So certainly the string beans.
Okay, I think that's enough.
And the asparagus.
These two things take the longest to cook, so let's put that in there.
Okay.
All right.
I'm going to season it with salt a little bit.
A little peperoncino just to give it a little zest.
And this gets cooking, so I'm going to cover it.
Let's mix the pasta.
So I'm looking at this.
Maybe the asparagus and the string beans could use just a little bit of water to kind of steam them up, just like that.
So, you see, we're going to cook everything here so the flavors all stay in here.
That's that.
And, you know, I like to put the lid on so that the boiling point of the water comes back as soon as possible.
This way, the pasta doesn't lay on the bottom and sticks to each other.
They begin to cook.
And, of course, I put the spoon because, otherwise, it will overflow and I have to clean the stove.
So that's that.
I'm getting ready some pomodorini in the season.
Nice -- This nice little cherry tomatoes.
Mmm!
But, you know, if you don't have cherry tomatoes, could you take a ripe big tomato and cut it in cubes?
You could.
Why not?
But I think this little tomatoes just like that, cut in half.
Okay.
So we're ready with that.
And I'm going to cut some scallions.
And I like to use the green part of the scallions, as well.
That's very good.
A lot of times, people use just the white part.
And I also have pesto.
So let me talk a little bit about pesto.
You see inside, I have the pest underneath, and what I do is that I cover the pesto with a layer of oil, with a film of oil.
And here it is.
I mix the oil right in, and the pesto is nice and ready to go.
So pesto, you never cook pesto a lot or whatever.
I like to add at the last minute so that the freshness of the basil is there.
So, let's check.
Okay, you can see that that's sort of coming through.
Let's put the peas.
The peas are frozen peas.
If you have fresh peas, which, of course, are delicious, then you add them in the beginning with the asparagus and the string beans so that they cook.
These are frozen, so maybe I'll wait a little bit and actually add the tomatoes first.
Let the tomatoes kind of cook in there.
And I'm going to add the scallions.
♪ Okay.
All looks good.
I'm going to chop some basil into it now.
When you have a basil plant like this, you should cut it right here.
Look, right here.
This will continue to grow.
Do not let your basil plant to flower.
Once the basil plant has flowered, that's the end of the growing of the plant itself.
It focuses on the flowers, on developing seeds.
So, nip your basil plants, the top four leaves, five leaves, and these other leaves underneath will grow into more plant, more basil.
And so, this way, you have your plant yielding.
You know, you can harvest it two, three times instead of just once and finished.
So we have this going.
All right.
Mmm.
Okay.
Let me add the peas in here.
Add a little bit more salt and maybe a drizzle of oil.
I'm looking at it.
There's a lot of water released.
Let's -- Let's cover this.
Let's see how -- So you see this fusilloni, this big fusilli.
There's more than 300 and somewhat different shapes of pasta.
Each shape has different functions, if you will.
You know, if you have a pasta with nooks and crannies, like this one, or a tubular pasta and you're making a sauce like a Bolognese sauce, the little pieces of meat lodge into the nooks and crannies and actually carries the sauce.
I love dry pasta maybe even better than fresh pasta.
The pasta is a little bit al dente.
I'm going to finish it in here.
I like to fish it out with one of these, which is inexpensive.
It's great to have at home.
And you finish cooking the pasta right in here so, this way, you can mix everything in.
You let it cook together.
So now I'm going to add a little bit of pesto.
Just the last minute.
And that will give it the dressing.
And this could be fine just like that, or you can kind of enrich a little bit the pasta by adding a little bit of cream to it.
Okay.
Let's do a little bit of cream.
Mmm.
This looks yummy.
Let's throw in the shredded basil.
The flavors are building and building.
I'm going to put a little bit more of pesto, just like that.
Let's see.
I have the grated cheese.
You add it the last minute to the pasta, just as you're finishing it, like that.
You don't want the cheese to cook, but you want it to make sense, so I just close the flame, actually.
Mmm.
Look how great this looks.
So inviting.
When you're plating and you're afraid of drizzling, dribbling or whatever all over, always have kind of a plate underneath.
You see, that fell.
So I'm going to accompany myself.
♪ Let me do the next.
You have your veggies, you have your starches here.
Could you add some chicken here?
I guess you could in the beginning, but that's -- Primavera is all about primavera.
It's all about the vegetables.
Mmm-mmm-mmm.
Let's see.
How about Lidia?
This is for Lidia.
Mmm.
We have some plane graters.
These are great to grate cheese right on top.
Just like that.
Mmm.
Mmm-mmm-mmm.
This is a beautiful plate.
Let me taste some so that I can tell you.
This fusilloni is a mouthful, but it carries the basil and all of that.
Mmm.
You know, I love pasta, but I need to tell you, it's delicious, it's easy, and I expect you to make it.
Is that a deal?
Okay.
I'm going to finish this plate.
♪ Some of my favorite time in the kitchen has been teaching my grandchildren to grow into confident cooks.
And these days, even though they're living on their own, that doesn't mean they stop asking for my advice.
Sharing recipes -- penne rigate in a vodka sauce.
Hi, Ethan.
ETHAN: Hi, Nonni.
How are you?
LIDIA: How you doing?
ETHAN: I'm good.
I'm good.
I just wanted to call and let you know that I made this pasta.
LIDIA: You did?
What kind of person did you do?
ETHAN: Penne alla vodka with some of your marinara that I had in the freezer.
LIDIA: Uh-huh.
ETHAN: And it turned out to be very good, and all of my roommates really enjoyed it.
LIDIA: You're at home now, but at school, you have one hot plate.
ETHAN: Yeah, it was a little difficult to cook it at that school, juggling between the one hot plate.
So we had to boil the pasta in the water first and then take it off and then start cooking the sauce, making sure to save some of the pasta water, like you always taught me.
And kind of just, like, juggling back and forth between straining the pasta, cooking the sauce.
LIDIA: You have my marinara.
And then what else did you do to it?
ETHAN: I added some half-and-half.
We didn't have any vodka, so... LIDIA: Did you use some of the pasta cooking water instead?
ETHAN: Yes, I did.
LIDIA: Was it good?
ETHAN: It was.
All my roommates loved it.
LIDIA: Did you put some grated cheese at the end to tie it all together?
ETHAN: Yeah, we grated some Grana.
LIDIA: What kind of pasta did you use?
ETHAN: We used penne rigate.
LIDIA: So there's eight of you in there.
I guess you cooked two pounds of pasta?
ETHAN: Yeah, about two pounds.
LIDIA: You have a microwave?
ETHAN: Yeah.
LIDIA: You can heat the sauce in the microwave, too.
And then you can cook your pasta, and then you can combine -- put the sauce into the pasta to strain, and you cook it together.
ETHAN: Oh, well, hopefully I'm going to experiment some more with the marinara sauce and try out some new pastas.
LIDIA: So, keep on cooking, keep on being creative, and keep on informing me on what you're up to.
I love to hear.
ETHAN: I will.
I'll stay in touch.
I'll let you know what we're cooking.
I'll send you pictures.
LIDIA: I love you.
I am so proud of you.
Keep on studying, and keep on cooking.
ETHAN: I will.
LIDIA: Ciao.
ETHAN: Ciao.
LIDIA: Grandkids are the best -- the best in the world.
For grandmas, there's nothing better.
♪ Pasta, pasta, pasta.
I can cook pasta every day of the week.
We're going to do cavatappi.
You see it?
And it looks just like a corkscrew, just like that.
So, right in.
Salted water boiling.
I always tell you, just salt the water enough, no oil, Because if you put oil, then the sauce doesn't adhere to the pasta.
So let's go and clean the asparagus.
Asparagus -- I have some ready.
Just bend it and see where it tells you to crack it.
Just peel a little bit, especially if they look tough.
These look young.
And we are going to cut it in pieces.
And then what we'll do, we will add it to the pasta cooking water and finish cooking with that and make the pesto in between, and we'll be done.
So here we are.
The asparagus are ready.
Let's start the pesto.
And, you know, one of these is perfect to make a pesto.
Garlic.
Yes, always a little bit of garlic.
Toasted pistachio.
Don't forget to toast your nuts before you use it in a pesto.
We'll put parsley in there.
And then spinach.
And, you know, you always are used to leafy spinach sautéed and all that.
Here, I'll make a pesto with it.
And that goes to tell you you can make pesto, you know, with all different kinds of verdure.
Put some salt.
Some peperoncino.
And...let's get pesto going.
[ Food processor whirring ] Oil.
[ Whirring stops ] Let me just check it out.
The oil is the only dressing for the pasta, so don't be skimpy on the olive oil.
Maybe another whirl and some more oil.
[ Food processor whirring ] [ Whirring stops ] Okay.
So the pasta is cooking away.
And, at this point, I will throw in the asparagus and let it cook together.
They're cooking together.
And you can see the asparagus.
A few more minutes.
So let's clean up, and we're going to be ready to serve the pasta.
Buongiorno.
Benvenuti.
Comfortable in my library, I was waiting for you and for your questions.
So here we go.
So here is a message from Clair.
And she says, "I always feel like so much is wasted of the asparagus.
Is there anything you can do with the woodsy stems that are broken off?"
Of course, Clair.
Take a mallet or something and just crack the stems that have been broken off.
That can turn into a great base for an asparagus soup.
Throw that in and add some carrots, and you make the base, and then you drain all of that out.
Here you have the soup.
And then in this soup, you can add rice and the top of the asparagus, so you're using everything.
Also, you know, if you want to make a simple vegetable broth to have in your freezer, that's a good way to use the asparagus leftovers.
So it looks like I have here a video from Nancy.
NANCY: Hi, Lidia.
My name is Nancy, and I have a question for you.
My husband does most of the cooking... but when it's my turn in the kitchen, I always wonder... if I should use kosher or regular salt for the pasta water.
Tutti a tavola a mangiare.
LIDIA: Bravo, Nancy.
Love your setting there.
Salt is a big question, you know, and I get it often -- which salt should I use?
Salt ranges from fine pouring salt to flakes, and each one in cooking has a different role.
But for pasta cooking water, kosher salt is just fine, Nancy.
Here is another e-mail from Marion, and she writes, "How can I save parsley if I'm not going to use it all right away?
Thank you for your help."
What I do is I pluck all of the tops, the stems of the parsley.
I wash, and I freeze, and those are for soup.
Chopped parsley will last in the refrigerator three, four days.
Then it begins to kind of turn color.
When you pluck the leaves out of the stem, those will keep even four or five days.
Good question, and I hope all of you out there are taking up these tips.
And why don't you send me your questions?
Thank you for being here.
Ciao.
Oh, the pasta is done, the asparagus are just right, the pesto's here, so straight in the bowl.
You know, I always tell you, do not rinse your pasta.
You can drain it.
This spider here -- inexpensive but so efficient in the kitchen, especially when cooking pasta.
Mmm.
Okay.
We have the pesto on the bottom.
Slowly, let's go all around.
Mmm-mmm.
Oh, you should smell the aroma here.
Even the bees are coming around.
They know what's good.
Okay.
So, I'm looking.
This is flowing pretty well.
The pesto is enough.
The pasta, I just picked it up.
I didn't drain it completely so it has a little bit of water in there.
Mmm.
You should smell the aroma.
I am going to use Pecorino, and Pecorino is 100% sheep's milk.
[ Sniffs ] Mmm.
It's a very pronounced flavor.
You know, grating fresh cheese is the best.
And you know how I like to plate my food.
I just let the food speak.
Let it flow.
It's beautiful on its own.
Beautiful to serve.
Che bellezza!
♪ This is a nice mound of cavatappi with asparagus and pesto -- spinach pesto.
And how about Lidia?
A little plate for Lidia.
♪ And this, this is beautiful.
It's ready to serve.
Let's do it.
Che bellezza!
And I would like to add a little more fresh cheese, like I told you.
So if you put a little bored with pieces of cheese and a grater, and let your guest help themselves.
Okay.
Now, some cheese for me, for Lidia.
Let me taste.
Mmm!
It's fresh.
You can taste the spinach, the crunchiness of the asparagus, the intensity of the Pecorino cheese, and the pistachios.
Underneath it all, it's really, really delicious.
So, I certainly have enough.
Come.
Come and join me here in my backyard.
Tutti a tavola a mangiare.
And...
Salute!
♪ Pasta and all its different shapes and the possibility of all its different sauces and colorings that you can give to pasta are endless.
Whether you begin with pasta, butter, and cheese, then you can evolve, then you can develop, then you can add the vegetables, then you can add the sauce.
And the question is also not just to pour that sauce or whatever on top.
It's to get the pasta involved in the absorption of the sauce.
So, have the sauce, take the pasta out, drain it -- no rinsing -- and put it right in the sauce.
And I do that when the pasta is still al dente so it finishes cooking in the pan with the sauce.
And what happens is that the pasta is absorbing the sauce, and it tastes better.
It finishes to cook, and you have a better presentation.
You don't have a situation where you have a bowl, you have a mound of pasta, and the pasta has not absorbed the sauce in any way.
So, make sure that your pasta and the sauce are well-married together, because then it's a complete sensation, it's a complete meal.
Pasta is a great carrier of the sauce you're gonna put on it, and Grandma is a great carrier of song right to the table.
"Libiamo."
♪ Libiamo ♪ ♪ Libiamo ne' lieti calici ♪ ♪ Che la bellezza infiora ♪ ♪ Libiamo ♪ ♪ Libiamo ne' lieti calici ♪ ♪ Che la bellezza infiora ♪ ♪ Libiamo ♪ ♪ Libiamo ne' lieti calici ♪ [ Singing in Italian ] Salute!
[ Speaks Italian ] ANNOUNCER: The food from this series makes Italian cooking easy for everyone and showcases simple-to-prepare recipes that require fewer steps, fewer ingredients, and less cleanup, without sacrificing flavor.
The recipes can be found in Lidia's latest cookbook "Lidia's a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl," available for $29.95.
To purchase this cookbook and any of her additional products, call 1-800-PLAY-PBS or visit shop.pbs.org/lidia.
ANNOUNCER: To learn more about Lidia, access to videos, and to get recipes, tips, techniques and much more, visit us online at lidiasitaly.com.
Follow Lidia on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @lidiabastianich.
♪ ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: Funding provided by... ANNOUNCER: At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.
Cento -- Trust your family with our family.
ANNOUNCER: Grana Padano -- authentic, Italian, rich in tradition yet contemporary.
And by...
Authentic Italian cured meats.
Paolo Rovagnati, the true Italian tradition.
Closed captioning provided by San Benedetto.
"Lidia's Kitchen" studio provided by Clarke, New England's official Sub-Zero and Wolf showroom and test kitchen.
♪ ♪ ♪
Support for PBS provided by:
Lidia's Kitchen is presented by your local public television station.
Distributed nationally by American Public Television