How have we not talked about spaghetti before?
 

I'm not talking about that baked spaghetti bullshit. Real spaghetti. Does it HAVE to be spaghetti to be American spaghetti? Favorite pasta brand? No meat, ground meat, meatballs? Mushrooms? Do you have a favorite jarred sauce?

I'm sure you'd think what we do is hot garbage (it is).

I'd be interested to know how to do better, but I'm a pretty big fan of italian sausage in the sauce.

I'd type my recipe out but my arms are heavy.

Whatever your sauce choice....Sear the balls of meat then cook them the rest of the way in the sauce.

That's-a the way!

I prefer thin noodles as opposed to traditional spaghetti noodles or angel hair.

Spaghetti, like chili, is a food that I am always slightly disappointed in. Every time I eat it I can't help but think "this is good, but could be better." I've just never had truly great spaghetti.

Looking forward to seeing some recipes.

I think you know my entry - I'm very simple with things like spaghetti and chili - I like a smooth salty/semi sweet sauce, bolognese style.

I don't think we ever have - and i'm glad you're spear-heading these talks!

I'm not sold that what we think of as Italian-American spaghetti needs spaghetti. I'm a must-have meat sauce (beef preferably), and meat sauce is better suited to tubular pasta like rigatoni.

I don't normally make my own sauce. Sometimes I do. I really like Victoria's sauce. Quite tasty, but pretty pricey.

http://www.multivu.com/players/Engli...3c36453a89.jpg

Sometimes, more often that not, I do mushrooms, too. There's a pasta carried around here imported from Italy called La Molisana that I really dig.

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My guilty pleasure is Kraft Tangy Italian. It's hot garbage, but it's what Mom made when I was a kid, and I still love it from time to time. The pasta especially is bad, so I do throw that away and use real pasta.

http://assets.kraftfoods.com/ecomm/k...1000658800.jpg

I approve of the last two - don't know the first (pictured) - the kraft is quite tasty - there's nothing wrong with that. I pinch a couple sugar go's and drop it into the kraft - sure helps take a twist of biterness off the final sauce.

I will try Victoria - Whole Foods?

Publix, Winn Dixie. I think Walmart even carries it.

ok got it

I'm doing a copycat version of the Kraft tonight actually. It's really hard to find here, but the copycat I found is a reasonable facsimile, plus I can control the salt and additives better.

What do you guys think about baked spaghetti?

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Cook your sauce low and slow.

I eat my spaghetti with bread, like a sandwich. Old boarding school habit since we only got one serving per meal, but all the bread you could eat.

This is the best meatball recipe I've ever made. Makes a TON, but reheats are great, and who can resist meatball subs?

I never eat fresh spaghetti as a sandwich, but leftovers are almost always sandwiches with white bread and lightly buttered.

:thumb:

I reject your thesis.

There's something better than baked spaghetti. It's called lasagna.

make your own sauce in spaghetti, and for the love of god dont over cook the noodles. If the sauce doesnt stick to the noodles you did something wrong.

AN excellent reason for keeping 1/2 to 1 c. of starchy pasta water. Mix a little in with the sauce and pasta and the starch will help it stick.

Just the basics. Spaghetti noodles with meat sauce.

Spaghetti bread is where the **** it's at though. I'll eat that shit any day of the week.

I made spaghetti for my wife on our very first date. Been stuck with her ever since. **** spaghetti.

Also, did you guys know that filipinos put a shit ton of sugar in their spaghetti? The sauce comes out super sweet.

dude i never thought about that, i usually undercook the spaghetti noodles and then finish them off in the sauce. I am going to try that though.

Finishing in the sauce is pro-tip, but keep the pasta water in case you need to thin the sauce a bit or need some extra cling.

I don't eat it very often but when I do it's tomato sauce with ground Italian sausage, mushrooms and sometimes zucchini and summer squash, topped with Parmesan and Mozzarella cheese. I prefer it over rice rather than noodles.

:eek:

I don't eat italian made by anyone who calls the gravy sauce. That is all.

Spaghetti (what we typically think of as spaghetti anyway) isn't Italian. It's distinctly American.

What?

Not sure who you think "we" is but there are plenty who like their italian foods the italian way. Though yeah, spaghetti is an American thing too.
Anyway, great thread and I don't want to derail.

So mangiare everyone, mangiare.

My dad used to cut his spaghetti sauce with a noticeable amount of sugar to help prevent reflux. It always seemed to work.

wait im confused you're supposed to call it gravy?

I guess I have never even heard of baked spaghetti. I'm kinda weird in the fact I don't really care for spaghetti, but lasagna done correctly might be my favorite food. l love a correctly made lasagna!! Every time I tell folks that they just say dude, they are the same thing. No, they are not, and I guess I really don't know why. When the wife makes spaghetti, I just make a ham and cheese sandwich and some chips. Her and the kids love it, so I just let them have at it :thumb:

However, if I am drunk and I put about a half a container of Parmesan cheese on it, I can stomach spaghetti. I may need to look into this baked spaghetti, if it is more similar to lasagna, maybe we can all eat it :thumb:

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=313384

For someone who seems to value cooking, this entire post should make you feel so much shame it overwhelms you.

No. People are ****ing clueless about Italian food. It's also not called "marinara." There's no such thing as "marinara sauce."

It's called "sugo di pomodoro." Which literally means "sauce of tomato."

This is how you cook tomato sauce.

Cut white onion.
Put them in low heat olive oil
add tomatoes
add fresh basil
season with salt

That's it. That's the whole sauce. There's no meat. No meat balls. No sausage or peppers or oregano or shrimp or breaded chicken or anything else that makes it disgusting.

Additionally, "spaghetti" is a type of pasta, thicker than linguine. When you say you don't think spaghetti has to have... well... spaghetti noodles, it makes no sense. It is not synonymous with pasta.

But the biggest thing you likely do wrong - that almost every "italian" restaurant not run by an actual Italian chef does wrong - is that YOU DON'T SALT THE WATER. YOU HAVE TO PUT SALT IN THE PASTA WATER.

How much salt? Two handfuls. The water pasta cooks in should taste like the ocean. Pasta - even spaghetti - has actual flavor to it. When you just cook it in plain water, it's bland and gross. So, you add a bunch of shit to it to make it marginally interesting. The entire concept of italian food is based on simple recipes using few ingredients. If you add 20 things to the sauce, you're missing the entire point of why the food is good, inexpensive, and delicious.

There are other recipes for spaghetti noodles, like clam sauce (red or white), mussels, carbonara (the best), or Spaghetti alla Norma (southern recipe using eggplant).

throw away your jars of sauce.
Keep your polpette (meatballs) separate from your pasta.
Salt your water.

Open your world.

I can see the Kraft, but **** off on the rest. Victoria's for a jarred sauce is excellent, and that dried pasta is outstanding, too. And sorry if you disagree, but rigatoni is exponentially better than spaghetti for use with meat sauce.

What Americans typically think of as "spaghetti" isn't Italian.

That would be affirmative.

That being said, I've never had Italian food that knocked my socks off.

I was in Chicago for an audit one time and the gals I traveled with found this ****ing high dollar Italian outfit everyone raved about. The pasta was meh and the Italian Sausage I bought was really ****ing undercooked. I mean make me dead undercooked. It took like an hour and half to get the undercooked one so I just didn't eat it and left.

So while I do know very little about Italian food, I've had a decent shot of it and even when I go spend big money I'm not impressed. So you'll just have to forgive my ignorance in this instance.

I can't remember the name of that place, but I went to a place in DC once that blew me away. Very pricey, but they had "pasta mamas" on the first floor making the pastas - was pretty fascinating to sit there and watch someone with a ton of experience making pasta from scratch.

Nice. I'm sure that's far better than the place I went. I'm trying to wrack my brain and hell if I can remember the name. I can see place inside and out and of course the raw ****ing sausage is burned into my memory, but it was damn expensive. Like better than $50 for me and I didn't have wine.

There is supposed to be a decent Italian outfit in Garden that I've tried to go to a few times, but the line is always long. Maybe I'll get down there again sometime.

I make the same exact thing but also with bell peppers (and onions/garlic/spices), and serve with rotini.

Had to look the DC place up. Filomena's.

http://www.filomena.com/

My grandmother's parents came over from the boot. Tell me more about Italian food.

Nice. I have a couple buddies in DC. Hopefully I can get out there sometime soon. Not sure I can convince the wife to go there with the kiddos though.

Thanks for the link! Yea, that video does make it sound really similar to lasagna except no cottage cheese and not near enough shredded cheese. A good lasagna will disrupt bowl movements for a day or two! We are talking wiping out a small Wisconsin county of their cheese!! :thumb:

When the lady in the video showed that 1/2 bag of cheese, I knew it was headed south :( . We are talking 2 full bags when the wife makes it!! Of course, she does have a bigger pan so a bigger lasagna :clap:

Yeah, forgot to mention the red bell peppers and spices. I like onion too, but it doesn't like me, so it's usually just a litte onion powder in the spices.

Cottage cheese?

So in college there was a place near campus that did take out spaghetti, everything came in a one gallon white plastic pail. It was amazing. Why are there not more places like this?

http://grindersspaghettihouse.com

My ex mil (Italian) made some sauce that was ****ing killer. It's been many years but I remember she would start cooking it on a Saturday afternoon and cook it all night. We'd have it for Sunday dinner. JFC it was so good. Rich, deep deep flavor. It's been over 30 yrs ago and I've not had anything close to as good since. Her mother moved to the U.S. after WWII and taught my mil how to cook right.

Yea. Me and Fire Me Boy were discussing the differences between baked spaghetti and lasagna because I had never heard of baked spaghetti before.

Sometimes you wish you could get rid of the ex, but keep her family don't ya!

Who knew saphojunkie was an Italian food snob?

I'm going to make a very sophisticated dish for lunch, it comes in a package that says "ramen" and I put it in hot water for 3-4 minutes before eating it in a large mug.

Cottage cheese isn't normal. I know it's used occasionally when folks don't like ricotta. My grandma used to use it. Personally, best is a nice bechamel, IMO.

I will be unable to contribute today much until COB. If I'm not back tonight - I'll certainly bump this tomorrow - I have some exciting insight toward this discussion!

Such a tease.

Thats how my wife does it also and of course at ton of garlic in everything. I like garlic but not like a filipino.

Yeah, ricotta >>> cottage cheese in lasagna. Better flavor and much better texture. I haven't tried bechamel.

This is pretty tasty.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/...recipe-2110037

Even if you don't use the whole recipe, use the bechamel and layer in where you'd do the ricotta.

Kraft makes boxed spaghetti holy hell where have I been. Everything is in the box? If so this is news I can use.

My quick spaghetti is these below.
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LOL. I'm a dumbass. I thought bechamel was some kind of exotic cheese, not a white sauce. LMAO

Pasta, powdered spice mix, and parmesan.

The pasta is the worst pasta ever. Replace it with decent pasta.

The McCormick pack with tomato paste and water mixed with hamburger is how my mom made spaghetti when I was growing up (still does, actually). It's probably why I never developed a taste for it.

Bingo! Finally!:D


In our house when raising kids, Spaghetti was a pretty reasonable way to feed everybody without breaking the bank.

Brown some lean ground beef, shrooms, onions, garlic and some bell pepper, add your favorite jar of gravy, you let it simmer for however long you have until time to feed.

I hate that real thin pasta, angel hair. Probably the only kind of pasta that I don't just love. Could live off it for years, and my daughters will tell you we pretty much did.

Now, for the last year and half, I have almost eliminated complex carbs. Everything is whole grain or whole wheat.

No enriched pasta , no white bread, no potatoes, etc.

You ever eat that whole wheat spaghetti?

You gotta really be hungry for pasta to eat that crap.

It is not a regular on our menu anymore but losing the weight has made it worth it.

if it hasn't been posted yet,


THAT'S AAH SPICEY MEEEATBALL!!!!

Yeah my mom was same. I am old enough to remember spaghetti sauce before Ragu and jars. Seems it was either powder or can or scratch.

I've been told to avoid tomato products that come in cans. The acid will leach out the chemicals.

When I'm going for a premade sauce (mostly to use as a starter), I go with this:

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Really? That shows how little I know. I don't think I have ever had this ricotta you mention, but I'm not sure. A handful of times, the wife has bought those pre packaged lasagnas you get and just throw in the oven, they might of been made with this ricotta, dunno. But the wife uses cottage cheese, and it's wonderful :clap: I'm not a chef, so I don't know what ingredients go into what, I just know what I like :D

You seem pleasant.

If you like it, that's all that matters. The Stouffer's frozen uses ricotta, I think.

My grandma always used cottage cheese. I didn't know I could love lasagna until I had it with ricotta or bechamel.

Is this thread sponsored by weight watchers or the American Diabeetus assn?

It makes perfect sense if you're not being a dick. I'm talking about spaghetti the dish, not spaghetti the pasta (which I'm pretty sure you knew). The Italian-American "spaghetti," which is typically spaghetti pasta with a tomato sauce, with or without meat.

I reject the premise that spaghetti can't have meat.

In that sense, does your spaghetti (the dish) need to have spaghetti (the pasta)? I say no. Other pastas are better suited, especially for meat sauces.

You say a lot of really good stuff here, especially about salting the water. (Though a couple handfuls is much - usually a couple tablespoons for 4 qts of water.)

You also mention basil. Important to note you don't want to cook the basil. Add it after taking it off the heat.

There are people that don't like ricotta?

Jarred sauce is an atrocity. I make my own gravy. San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, fresh garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, oregano, and a fresh basil sprig.

Some think it's gritty. I've found it's fine if you get the whole milk kind.