Martha Stewart shares her cool girl pasta recipes for effortless, elegant meals. These dishes are simple yet sophisticated, packed with rich flavors and perfect for any occasion. Whether you’re craving creamy fettuccine, a flavorful one-pot wonder, or classic bucatini, Martha’s expert tips make pasta night a breeze.
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00:00Here's a recipe for a simple fettuccine Alfredo. I have one pound of fettuccine
00:06in a generously salted pot of boiling water. We have a half a pound of Parmesan
00:15cheese grated and a half a pound of good quality unsalted butter. This goes right
00:22into the bowl of your electric mixer. Just mix that up with the half a pound
00:31of Parmesan cheese. As the story goes, fettuccine Alfredo was invented by a
00:40restaurateur in the early 1900s and it was a simple pasta that became very
00:45famous a little later on when Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford visited
00:51Alfredo's restaurant on their Italian honeymoon. After eating his concoction,
00:56the couple brought Alfredo a golden fork and spoon in honor of his pasta. You
01:02won't believe how simple this pasta is to make and I don't know if it deserves
01:08a golden fork and spoon but it certainly enjoys your attention. So just mix the
01:13Parmesan and the butter and you can add a little bit of black pepper if you like.
01:20So that's that part of the recipe. Rather simple, don't you think? No cream, no milk,
01:28no eggs. This is a three ingredient plus a little salt and pepper recipe. And the
01:36pasta is boiling. Just get this scraped off the beater. If you want pasta tonight,
01:44this is a really, really good and simple recipe. So here's your softened butter
01:51and cheese waiting now for the pasta to cook. This beautiful fettuccine, dried
01:58fettuccine, has a good what they call tooth, has a nice texture and that takes
02:03about 10 minutes. Have your colander set up in your sink for draining and before
02:09you drain, save at least one cup of the pasta water. So I think the pasta is done.
02:18It actually took a little bit more than 12 minutes to cook. Now I've saved the
02:23pasta water. I'll drain the rest. Be careful of your feet. Don't splash.
02:39And if you were planning to have a facial, you don't have to. This is the ultimate in
02:43facials by the way. All this great steam on your face. Don't rinse. So now put it
02:52right into your cheese and butter mix and toss. All of that cheese and butter
03:00will melt right into this beautiful pasta. And you can add a little bit of the
03:09pasta water, just a quarter of a cup to loosen it up. And this is a wonderful,
03:19delicious comfort food. I think this is exactly what we're looking for.
03:27Fettuccine Alfredo. Pour it into your serving dish. It's creamy and moist,
03:37delicious. You can serve it with a little bit more grated cheese. And so here you
03:43have it. Eat it while it's hot. It's the ultimate in Italian comfort food.
03:47Fettuccine Alfredo. This is a three garlic pasta. And you can make it from
03:53what's in your pantry. Probably all of us have garlic, olive oil, and a box of
03:58spaghetti. This is a quick cook meal and your family will adore it. To cook
04:02spaghetti, in a large pot of boiling water, sprinkle in a little bit of salt.
04:08And when it's at a full rolling boil, add your pasta. I don't bother to break it up.
04:14I like the long strands of the spaghetti. And always choose a good brand of
04:19spaghetti. One that's enriched and one that has some flavor. Just stir it in and
04:24let it boil until it's al dente. Now in your oven, you've had roasting one whole
04:29head of garlic. Roasting garlic just does something fantastic to it. It's a 425
04:36degree oven and it stays in there for approximately an hour. I keep roasted
04:40garlics in the refrigerator. And then you can just squeeze out each clove and
04:44you get a most delicious, sugary, sweet-tasting garlic. You'll need five
04:49cloves of raw garlic, very thinly sliced. And three cloves of garlic that are
04:54finely minced. You need two tablespoons of olive oil. And I cook with as good
04:59olive oil as I can find. I just love the flavor of really good, virgin olive oil.
05:05And you need a little parsley from your herb garden or from that flower pot. The
05:10reason this is called three-garlic pasta is you're going to have fried
05:13garlic. Those are the slivers. You're going to have almost raw garlic. That's
05:18the minced garlic. And you're going to have roasted garlic. You'll need, oh you'll
05:22need a little bit of white wine too. Notice I'm using a large skillet because
05:26the cooked pasta goes into this skillet when you're ready to serve. Just to heat
05:31it up. This sliced garlic is going to kind of bless the pan, flavor the oil,
05:40and get a lovely deep golden color. Garlic takes on color very quickly when
05:47it's being sauteed in oil. You can see it's just getting that lovely color.
05:52Reduce the heat now. You can see it's just starting to smoke. You don't want
05:57that olive oil to smoke too much. Remove the garlic to a piece of paper toweling.
06:02So now the oil and the pan has been blessed, they say, with the flavor of the
06:08garlic. Add your minced garlic. Your roasted garlic has a very different
06:19flavor. And 3 quarters of a cup of dried white wine.
06:27I'm just going to add the cooked spaghetti to the pan. We're going to toss this with our
06:37garlic and the white wine. Raise the heat a little bit. Add your parsley. That's one
06:53cup of Italian parsley, coarsely chopped. Already look at the color that that pasta
06:58is. So pretty. And one teaspoon of red pepper flakes, or to your liking. Some
07:04people would put a lot more than that in.
07:09Freshly ground black pepper and a generous sprinkling of salt. Smelling so
07:16good. Sprinkle on your fried garlic. And as soon as it's hot, transfer it to your
07:26serving bowls. I like to serve this kind of supper in great big bowls with big
07:31forks and spoons. And a little sprinkling on top of good quality parmesan that's
07:38grated.
07:42So when you think that there's nothing to eat, look carefully in that pantry for
07:50these simple ingredients and make yourself a three garlic pasta. It's
07:55delicious. Now this pasta dish is one of my all-time favorites. I learned about
08:01botarga, which is the main flavor ingredient of this pasta, when I was
08:06visiting the beautiful island of Sardinia. I had never been there before
08:10and I had never tasted botarga, which is in the Mediterranean, known as the
08:16Mediterranean caviar. And it's the row of either the grain mullet or the tuna fish,
08:23which is found in the Mediterranean. It's salted, pressed, and air-dried. And it
08:28adds a very unique flavor to the pasta. So I am browning the garlic in olive oil.
08:37And we have some white bread in our food processor. And I'm just pulsing the bread
08:44until it forms a rough breadcrumb. And I toast this, about a cup of it, in with
08:51the garlic. Just about that much. And now gently brown the breadcrumbs. That takes
09:02about five minutes. The pasta, the bucatini, which is a long tubular pasta
09:08with a hole down the middle, cooks for about six minutes in the boiling water.
09:14And then the rest of the time in the sauce itself, which I'm going to make
09:18right now. So the breadcrumbs are a golden brown. And I'm removing those to a
09:26tray. They're crispy. They'll even get a little crispier drying out of the
09:32oil. And now we're going to make the rest of the sauce right here in the
09:36high-sided skillet. And we have to heat now a quarter of a cup of olive oil and
09:43four cloves of garlic, crushed. Just leave the pieces nice and big because you can
09:48pick those out later on. So we'll just crush these like that. And they can go
09:56right into the... Oh, the pasta has cooked now for six minutes. I'm going to drain
10:01that into a colander. Good facial, steamy facial. And just let that sit right here.
10:15Okay, so the garlic's in. We're going to add a quarter of a cup of capers. Stand
10:26back because the capers, even though they've been drained of their liquid, do
10:29tend to pop open. And they turn into little flowers when they do pop open.
10:36It's a pretty sight. And a quarter of a cup of golden raisins, slightly chopped.
10:42So already it's an unusual combination of ingredients. This would be something
10:47that you would find in Sardinia or even in the islands off the coast of Sicily.
10:53And we have preserved lemons. These you can buy or you can make, but we want just
11:02the peel cut into small dice. What these are are really lemons that have been
11:07sitting in kosher salt for about three weeks. It is a North African, Moroccan
11:14kind of condiment and extremely flavorful. So add your preserved lemon
11:20and four cups of chicken stock.
11:28Bring that to a simmer. Already a different sauce, wouldn't you say? You
11:33need a tablespoon of lemon juice. That's basically about a half of a lemon. And
11:40six tablespoons of unsalted butter. One stick of butter is eight tablespoons and
11:46six is three quarters of a stick of butter. Makes cooking very much easier
11:51when you know the proportions. So let this cook together until the butter melts.
11:56And another exotic ingredient is this reddish Aleppo pepper. This comes from
12:02Turkey or from Syria. Aleppo is actually a city in Syria. One teaspoon has a very
12:10nice taste for this particular pasta. Now when this comes to a simmer, add your
12:16pasta. And the pasta cooks yet another, oh, three or four minutes. And while this
12:22is simmering, and don't forget to stir, you can prepare the rest of the
12:26ingredients. Al dente, by the way, is the most desired doneness. The pasta is
12:31cooked until it can be bitten easily, but still offers that little sense of
12:35texture. That's the term al dente, to the tooth. And we have our botarga. This is
12:42tuna botarga, and you buy it by the ounce. It is the most unusual flavor. Salty,
12:49pungent, really, really amazing. It's a little hard to find. You can probably get
12:57it online, but that's the botarga. And I want to also make some strips of
13:04Parmesan cheese. All of this is going to go onto our pasta. If you use a vegetable
13:11peeler like this, you can make yourself quite a little pile of these pretty
13:15curls. Let's check on our pasta. Add half a cup of Parmesan cheese. This does help
13:22thicken up the liquid. And then add your quarter of a cup of toasted pine nuts
13:27and your lovely chopped parsley. Flat-leaf parsley is good. And now I'm
13:37going to add most of the botarga. I've reserved some for the top. Mmm, so
13:46utterly beautiful. So the way I like to serve it is in a shallow dish like this.
13:53Take a big swirl of it. Try to get all of the ingredients. A sprinkling of the
14:04breadcrumbs. And I don't know if you've ever had a pasta that you just can't stop
14:09eating. This is one of them. And some shavings of the Parmesan cheese on top.
14:15And a little bit more of the botarga. And here you have a very unusual, flavorful,
14:24unique, delicious pasta. One that you will remember forever. Bucatini with botarga.
14:31So here's a recipe that has taken the internet by storm. Everybody wants to make the one-pot
14:37pasta. This is an odd dish because you'll never believe you can cook pasta in so little water
14:43with all the other ingredients. So right into the saute pan, you add your 12 ounces of linguine.
14:51Just put that right in the bottom of the pan. Add one onion, which is peeled and very thinly
14:57sliced. Add 12 ounces of cherry tomatoes, just cut in half like that.
15:12Can you imagine? This is it. Four cloves of garlic, peeled and very thinly sliced lengthwise.
15:18I'm going to put a little garlic here, a little garlic there.
15:21A quarter of a teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper, cracked or ground.
15:31Two teaspoons of salt over the whole thing. And a quarter of a teaspoon of red pepper flakes.
15:42And four and a half cups of water.
15:51Two big sprigs of basil, just sort of stick them in there. Onto the stove, bring to a boil.
16:04So now turn this on high heat. It's going to take about 11 minutes start to finish.
16:10And you'll be stirring this constantly, but you'll see this pasta will soften,
16:15the tomatoes will start to cook, the basil will wilt, and you're going to have a
16:21amazing, delicious pasta. Have your Parmesan cheese ready to grate.
16:25So it's taken two minutes for the water to come to a boil. Now watch it closely,
16:30keep stirring it around, and the pasta should be done in approximately nine minutes.
16:35Okay, now here is our fantastic one pot pasta. It is fragrant, and it is well cooked,
16:43and it is just ready to eat. I would say this would serve two very hungry people,
16:48and a family of three. Pick it up and put it right in your bowl. Is that enough for you?
16:58And some torn basil leaves, and some freshly grated Parmesan. A little sprinkling
17:10of pepper, a little bit more salt, and the final drizzle of olive oil.
17:22Enjoy. That is a really great pasta. One pot.