Simple food...

This is a must-try.

There’s an Italian pizzaiolo named Vito Iacopelli. I watch his YouTube channel to pick up tips on making pizzas. During Covid, he was back in his home town and made this pasta bake for the family dinner.

That was also how I was introduced to “mortadella”. Yum! Yum!

The recipe has since been adapted and improved.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 500g Rigatoni
• 100g Pecorino Romano cheese
• 100g thinly sliced Mortadella (or ham if not found) basically 6 slices
• 6 hard boiled eggs cut into wedges.
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped.
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 500g making 30 small meatballs - best to use Italian sausages, removing the casing to make meatballs.
• 700ml Passata (+ 300ml water)
• 400g can of finely chopped tomatoes
• 100g Burrata or Stracciatella Cheese
• 150g Mozzarella

You will also need a pizza stone.

Instructions:

Ragù:

1. Add oil, onions into pan.
2. Add meatballs and then red wine. Cook a little.
3. Add Passata and tomatoes.
4. Fill bottle with a little water. Shake and add to the rest.
5. Fill can with a little water. Shake and add to the rest.
6. Simmer and slow cook for 20 minutes on low heat.

Pasta:

1. Add pasta to pot of boiling water.
2. Add about 20g of salt to make water boil quicker.
3. Cook till just below al dente (5/6 of cooking time on packet).

Putting everything together:

1. Drain water from pot containing pasta, leave a little bit in pot.
2. Add some Pecorino cheese to pot.
3. Add a few scoops of the sauce (no meatballs) to pasta and stir.
4. Add enough to just coat the pasta.
5. Pour half the pasta into a deep baking tray to cover the base.
6. Sprinkle some pecorino cheese.
7. Add a bit of sauce, and all the meatballs.
8. Add stracciatella / burrata cheese.
9. Add mozzarella cheese (cover whole tray)
10. Add the eggs.
11. Add mortadella (spread and cover whole tray)
12. Add some more ragù sauce.
13. More Pecorino cheese.
14. Add the rest of the pasta to cover the top of the tray.
15. Add the rest of the sauce.
16. Add some more pecorino cheese.
17. Give the whole tray a shake to level everything.
18. Put pizza stone in top shelf of oven and pre-heat oven to 200ºC.
19. Put tray in oven with top close to pizza stone to char the pasta a bit
20. Bake for 20 minutes.

Buon appetito.