A simple yet superb pasta dish with a classic tomato sauce that's easy and quick to prepare and, for me, its fantastic flavours are dripping in memories of my father.
'Late Night' spaghetti di papà
I think I've worried far too long whether this dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce, bacon and peas is "interesting" enough to include here. To hell with worrying. It remains a personal favourite and a comfort food, not only because of its pure, deep flavours, but also because it was one of the first dishes I ever perfected and because my father taught me to cook it.
My father is the person who both inspired me to become interested in cooking and gave me the backbone of skills necessary to pull it off. At times, such as when we would cook "late night spaghetti", I was able to spend time with him alone while the household slept. That's not the reason this dish tastes so good. But it is a reason I cherish it so highly.
It's a recipe, with the various concomitant riffs, he learned in southern Italy in the early 1960s. One of the most vivid memories I have of him as a man is the passion with which he taught me to understand Pompeii and Herculaneum when I was really still a pretty small kid. And, when all others told me I was wasting my time studying Latin, a dead language, he'd just make this little in-joke that only I understood, a comic misquote of Tacitus. Yet, as a bitchy, unforgiving teenager, I'd often sing 'Where Do You Go to My Lovely?' when he cooked this dish late at night. If you've been able to follow any of this paragraph, you'll probably get the joke. If not, that's okay. It'll remain just between me and my dad, just as it usually did...
This was my father's "dirty stop out" dish. If he came home late after being out somewhere, which didn't happen very often, he would default to cooking this late dinner for himself. First he would bitch and moan that I, inevitably the only one still awake, was up way past a "healthy" bedtime. Then he'd get me to join him in the kitchen to cook it. It was a sequence of events that worked for me.
When I say "late night", I really do mean it, because often he'd start the tomato sugo from scratch, sometimes not until the early hours of the morning. If you're smart, and I think you are, you can prepare the sugo in bigger batches, divide them up and keep them in the fridge (or freezer) until needed, ideal for plucking ("here's one I prepared earlier") out on any weeknight after a busy day at work when you want something with flavour and minimal effort.
But, even if you're doing it from scratch, the method for the sugo aka classic pasta tomato sauce detailed here is the same.
This recipe feeds two adults or an adult and a teenager up way past bedtime. I'm sure that's not too challenging for you to scale up or down as needed.
Shopping list
Approx. 350g Sugo (di Pomodoro); preferably made using this recipe or store-bought
2 cloves of garlic, crushed o very finely chopped
2 red chillies, finely chopped (optional)
1 onion, chopped
Spaghetti (or other "ribbon" pasta); enough for two diners
4 rashers of good smoked/cured bacon; trimmed of fat and roughly sliced
½ a cup of garden peas or broad beans (fresh or frozen are equally good; not tinned)
Olive oil
A square of dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa). NB: you don't need this if you have made your sugo from the linked recipe because it will already contain it
A dash of red wine (optional)
parmesan or grana padano cheese; grated (optional)
for the salad
rocket or a mix of fresh leaves
cucumber, sliced or diced
small fresh tomatoes
olive oil, balsamico (or other preferred dressing)
Cooking Method
for the spaghetti with tomato sauce with bacon and peas
In a small saucepan, add a little olive oil and heat. When hot, add the garlic, then the onion. Stir regularly while they sweat, adding the red chillies (if using them) once they have softened. Add a splash of red wine and cook off the fluid, stirring occasionally
When the onions begin to brown, pour in the sugo, reduce the heat and stir thoroughly, allowing the mixture to bubble on a medium heat for about 8 mins, stirring occasionally
Add the sliced bacon, stir into the mixture and allow it to simmer for at least 10 mins on a medium-to-low heat
Add the garden peas or broad beans, stir in to the mixture and allow to bubble for another 5 mins or so. (Cook between 1 to 1.5 mins longer if adding them still frozen)
In another, larger pot with a lid, bring a substantial amount of salted water to the boil. Add the spaghetti (or other preferred 'ribbon pasta' and cook as per the manufacturer's instructions. This will usually be 10 to 12 mins with most dry spaghetti
While the spaghetti is cooking, prepare the salad in either a large bowl for diners to help themselves at table or on individual salad plates: cut tomatoes, chop the cucumber etc. You can dress the salad/s before serving or allow diners to do so at table
About halfway through the pasta's cooking time, grate in the dark chocolate (if using) and increase the heat; stirring so that the sauce reduces
Drain the cooked spaghetti/pasta and plate, either adding the sauce or allowing diners to do so so at table. Similarly, dressing with grated parmesan or grana padano (optional) can also take place before or at table
Alternatives
This was a family (at least for the members of the family who cooked) stalwart and it always came with a few twists or variations depending on what was in the kitchen, given that it wasn't really ever cooked before midnight or in any planned way.
But here is the basic mathematical formula: sugo + 1 legume variety + 1 protein type = yum!
On the legume front, I'd advise you to stick to garden peas or broad beans. I've tried it with various other legumes and beans and none of them really cut the mustard.
The bacon as cooked in the recipe above is very special. It has an almost 19th-century, Dickensian "boiled bacon" smoky thing going on. Whatever you do, do not cook the bacon before adding as detailed above.
If you're feeling beefier or more kosher, replace the rashers of bacon with four slices of good pastrami. Add these later in the cooking process, only a few minutes before serving. Based on repeated experience, I can promise this is a great alternative.
Pescatarians? Well, now we're getting to my actual favourite version. Replace the bacon with a tin of smoked mussels, draining off all excess oil before adding them to the sugo. Again, add them only a few minutes before serving; just long enough to ensure they heat thoroughly within the sauce. The combination of fresh garden peas and smoked mussels is my all-time favourite version of this dish and, apparently, according to my mother, more conclusive proof that I am my father's son than any DNA test: only he and I loved smoked mussels unconditionally. She would occasionally pad downstairs in her dressing gown in the middle of the night and find us in flagrante, munching on mussels...
Veggie/Vegan? Simple: leave the bacon out. I have on occasion tried alternatives (such as tempeh) but they were all pretty gross, while the straightforward plant-based version is actually delicious.
Pairings
Given the history of this dish in my family, that it was usually eaten hours after the consumption of alcohol was over, or before I was of an age to expect my dad to offer me a beer at two in the morning... which, frankly, was never an age I ever reached with him.
However, as a big boy who enjoys it as a tasty midweek dinner, I personally love it with heartier Italian reds; good old-fashioned Chianti or one of those thuggish Sangiovese numbers that work so well with the smoky flavours of slow-cooked bacon. Karel, however, will be able to provide true insight.
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