On the farm I stayed at in Italy, I worked everyday from 8 until 12, eating a simple breakfast of bread + jam + fruit + tea in the morning, and coming home to a filling spaghetti dish for lunch.
Maria made ricotta and apple spaghetti a couple of times, and I loved it. She used olive oil from the farm and a variety of spices that neither of us could translate. Giuseppe loved putting paprika on it (well, everything really...), so I thought that I would recreate the dish using paprika instead of throwing random spices in.
I chopped up some apple (gala, I believe) while the spaghetti water boiled. Threw in salt (the more the better!), the spaghetti, and when the noodles were almost al dente, I tossed in the apple bits to boil a little. Strained everything, mixed in some ricotta with the spaghetti/apple bits, drizzled some olive oil and sprinkled on some paprika.
I promptly brought this to the studio to eat during lunch. It was really good! I think that it would have tasted a little stronger if I had used really good olive oil (or perhaps a very very small amount of garlic? no, onions!). The ricotta made the spaghetti just rich enough to be very filling. I'll have to try to make it with my own ricotta, now that I know how to make it (wait until I put up photos from my 21st birthday weekend...)!
x
