Just the way Nonna makes it: Four recipes from Vicky Bennison's new Pasta Grannies cookbook (2024)

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In 2015 Vicky Bennison launched YouTube channel Pasta Grannies with the aim of collecting all the handmade pasta shapes to be found in Italy.

Now, people tune in for the pasta but stay for the Grannies. Here are four recipes from Bennison's second cookbook, Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking.

Agata and Clelia's gnocchi lunghi con zucchini (spaghetti-style pasta with courgettes and mint from Lazio)

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Gnocchi lunghi look like pici or umbricelli from further north in Tuscany and Umbria. But Agata and Clelia live in Lazio, south of Rome, where the dough and the name are different. The women are sisters-in-law, who had never cooked together before I filmed them. Their granddaughter is a fan of Pasta Grannies and persuaded them to appear on the show. Agata is a contadina (market gardener), while Clelia has always worked as a cook in various restaurants and now helps in the family restaurant, Locanda Del Principe.

Gnocchi lunghi are an ideal shape for a novice pasta maker. It helps to have a spray water bottle to hand to lightly spritz the board while you roll out the pasta, as it will "grip" the board better. Don't make it sodden though! Guanciale is cured pork cheek, which has plenty of fat and a great flavour. If you cannot find it, use unsmoked pancetta for this recipe.

INGREDIENTS

Pasta

• 300g (2½ cups) 00 flour
• 110g egg or 2 eggs
• 55ml warm water, plus extra if necessary

Sauce

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• 150g guanciale, cubed
• 400g courgettes (zucchini) (3 or 4, depending on the size), diced
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint leaves

To serve

• 60-80g pecorino Romano, grated

METHOD

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1. Make the egg pasta dough as described in Silk handkerchiefs with basil pesto from Liguria, below, swapping one egg for 55ml of water. Leave the dough, covered, to rest for at least 30 minutes.
2. Cut off a walnut-in-its-shell size piece of pasta dough. Place it on your board and roll out a string of pasta using flat palms, in the same way you would make a plasticine snake. It should be about 30cm long and no more than 3mm in diameter. Lay the gnocchi lunghi out individually, not in a pile, so that they do not stick together.
3. To make the sauce, put the guanciale in a sauté pan over a medium-low heat (without any oil) and leave the meat to render its fat. Stir the pieces regularly to make sure they do not brown too quickly. If necessary, add a dash of water; this helps the meat to cook for longer and keep it firm and moist while releasing its fat. If you are using pancetta, remember it has less fat than guanciale and so needs a bit of help: add a tablespoon of water at the beginning to kickstart the "I want the fat in the pan, not the meat" process.
4. After about 10 minutes the meat will browned and will have crispy edges. Remove the pieces from the pan and set aside. Use the lovely fat to sauté your courgettes over a medium heat for 4 minutes or so until the pieces are soft.
5. In the meantime, bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Chuck in the gnocchi lunghi and cook them for 1-5 minutes, depending on the thickness. The thinner they are, the faster they will cook. Taste-test them every minute or so to check when they are done the way you like them.
6. Remove about 100ml (scant ½ cup) of pasta water, then drain everything.
7. Add the pasta to the sauté pan. Toss the pasta with the courgette and 1 tablespoon of the mint and sauté the mixture for a minute or so. If you feel the pasta is drying out too much, add a bit of pasta water.
8. To serve, scatter over the rest of the mint and the grated Pecorino Romano.

Serves 4

Anna Maria's ziti alla Genovese (Pasta with stewed beef from Naples)

I am often asked how we find our grandmothers, and the answer is: we ask everyone – from mayors to hotel receptionists – if they can suggest a nonna. In this case, the Pasta Grannies team were staying in a rented apartment in Naples and the host's mum, Anna Maria, turned out to be a Pasta Granny. This recipe of Anna's is a typical Sunday lunch for Neapolitans.

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"Think of the sauce as onions with meat," Anna Maria explained. "And the onions are important. Ideally they should be the Montoro variety (grown in the Avellino area of Campania) or the Tropea onion. These are fragrant red onions. And you must select beef cuts which you can cook for hours." Here is her recipe, cooked against a backdrop of a ruined temple, surrounded and hidden by worse-for-wear blocks of flats.

• 400g ziti or other dry pasta such as penne, paccheri, rigatoni

Sauce

• extra-virgin olive oil
• 600g stewing beef, cut into 5cm chunks
• 1kg or 4 large red onions, thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, thinly sliced
• 1 celery stick, thinly sliced
• 1 bay leaf
• 100ml (scant ½ cup) dry white wine
• water or beef stock, as required
• salt

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To serve

• grated pecorino
• black pepper

METHOD

1. Pour a slug of olive oil into a large casserole dish. Heat this over a medium heat for a couple of minutes then start browning the beef a few pieces at a time. Once all the beef pieces have a bit of colour, return them to the pan along with the vegetables.
2. Season with salt, drop in the bay leaf, give everything a good stir and pour in the wine. Cover and braise the vegetables and meat for about 3 hours. Check the mixture regularly and if it starts to stick, add a little water or beef stock. What you are aiming for is a creamy onion sauce, and beef so soft you can cut it with a fork. Shred the meat if you like, or alternatively remove it to serve as a second course.
3. Ziti are long, so break them in half. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta for the time stated on the packet. Drain the pasta thoroughly. Place it in a large bowl and mix it well with the onion and beef sauce.
4. Let everyone add their own cheese and pepper if they like it.

And PS: No-one knows why a pasta dish from Naples is named after the city of Genova. There are lots of theories; for example, there were lots of Genovese chefs working in Naples in the 15th century.

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Serves 4-6

Marietta's tagliatelle con sugo alla contadina (Tagliatelle with farmer's sauce from Calabria)

So, this recipe is a not really a recipe at all; it's an echo of 99-year-old Marietta's orto, her countryside and the seasons. Courgette (zucchini), borlotti (cranberry) beans and field mushrooms can all be added (though not all at once). If you cannot find a vegetable in the list below, don't fuss; do as Marietta does and find something fresh and at its best. And yes, very occasionally, you might want to include some precious pancetta.

INGREDIENTS

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• pasta (or use dried tagliatelle)
• 400g (3⅓ cups) semolina flour
• 190-200ml (scant 1 cup) warm water
• pinch of salt

Sauce

• extra-virgin olive oil, for frying
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 1 celery stalk, finely diced
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• small pinch of dried red chilli flakes
• 2 tablespoons water
• 500g greens, such as chard, borage, cardella, chicory, dandelion and cime di rapa or broccoli
• 250g tomatoes (passata or fresh chopped tomatoes when in season)
• a handful of mixed herbs, such as wild fennel, parsley, sage, basil, marjoram or oregano

To serve

• extra-virgin olive oil
• grated pecorino (optional)

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METHOD

1. To make the pasta, sift the semolina flour into a large bowl and pour most of the water into the flour, reserving 15ml (one tablespoon). Work the dough with strong hands – no need to be gentle here – to gather it into a ball for kneading. Use the reserved 15ml of water only if you really can't get the dough to form after trying for a good minute or two. Semolina has a tendency to trick novices into thinking you need more hydration than necessary, as it feels dry until you have worked it for a bit.
2. When you have formed a ball, turn it out onto the pasta board and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and lightly bouncy. Cover and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
3. Once the dough has rested, roll it out to a thickness of 2mm. Dust and smooth some flour over the surface, then roll a loose, long log about 7cm wide. Use a sharp, straight-bladed knife to cut the log into 5mm-wide tagliatelle ribbons.
4. To make the sauce, add a slug of olive oil to a large saute or frypan and place it over a medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery and fry gently for 7-10 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and dried red chilli flakes and a pinch of salt and cook for another minute or so, making sure the garlic doesn't brown.
5. Pour in the water, then add the greens. Give them a good stir and add the tomatoes. Chop up the herbs so you have a good 2 tablespoons and stir this mixture into the sauce. Continue to simmer for 20 minutes or so.
6. Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the tagliatelle for a minute or two; you want it to be al dente. Use a spider to scoop it out and dump it into the sauce. Saute everything for another minute, and ladle in a bit of pasta water into the pan if the mixture looks a bit dry.
7. Serve immediately. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and grated pecorino if you fancy it.

Serves 4-6

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Nadia's Mandilli di saea con pesto (Silk handkerchiefs with basil pesto from Liguria)

"Mandilli di saea" translates as silk handkerchiefs; these large pasta squares should be very thin and light. And our Pasta Granny who shared her recipe with us is artist Nadia, who lives in the mountains of Liguria near Lumarzo. She is keen on living in harmony with nature; she won't even disturb spiders' cobwebs because she says "they have a job to do". And she is in the right spot to enjoy her surroundings: from her kitchen-sink window she looks out at the edge of a forest and regularly sees deer and the occasional wolf.

She loves growing her own vegetables and cooking from scratch. She even makes her own flour using locally grown whole wheat; it has a wonderful nutty aroma, but don't worry, you do not need to do this! We tested her recipe using 00 flour. If you do want to copy Nadia and use your own wholewheat flour, then sift the flour first, to remove the flakes of bran, otherwise your silk handkerchiefs will be more hessian in texture.

INGREDIENTS

Pasta

• 400g (3⅓ cups) 00 flour
• 220g egg or 4 large eggs

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Pesto

• 1 garlic clove
• 70g Italian pine nuts, raw or lightly toasted
• 60g Genovese basil leaves
• 120ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil (ideally soft, grassy-flavoured Ligurian oil)
• 50g parmigiano reggiano, grated
• 50g pecorino sardo, grated
• fine sea salt, to taste

METHOD

1. To begin with, weigh out your eggs and flour separately. Tip the flour onto a pasta board and make a generous well in the middle in which to pour your eggs.
2. Crack the eggs into the well. Use a fork or your fingers to scramble them as if you are making an omelette; the liquid should not be clumpy with yolk and white but properly mixed together. Then, slowly draw in a bit of flour at a time, making sure there's a consistently smooth mixture with no flour-bergs. Eventually you'll end up with a bit of a shaggy mess which you should heap together; start working this dough into a ball. Use a light touch when the egg is still wet, so you do not get too much stuck to your hands.
3. When you have a ball of pasta dough and no flour left on the board, start kneading the dough. This is a soft massage where you use your body weight to lean in on the pasta and make a dent with the heel of your hand and push forward on the board. Flatten, push, then pull the pasta back over itself constantly for 10 minutes. Time it. You will end up with a smooth and bouncy ball of pasta.
4. Once it's kneaded, place the dough in a bowl that fits the size of your ball and cover it with a close-fitting lid or dampened cloth which has not been cleaned in perfumed detergent; air is the enemy of pasta, and you don't want it to dry out. Let this rest for at least 30 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible; you should be able to read through it! This equates to 0.5mm thickness. You can use a pasta machine if you think you won't be able to manage this.
6. Dust flour over the pasta sheet then roll it up around your rolling pin, take a knife and slice lengthways through all the layers. The pasta will fall from the pin in rectangular strips that are magically the same width. Pile the strips one on top of the other and slice them horizontally to create squares. The exact size will depend slightly on the thickness of your rolling pin, but they should be about 15cm (6 inch) squares. Well done if they remind you of silk hankies!
7. To make the pesto, remove the skin from the garlic clove and halve the clove lengthways. If there's a green shoot (or anima, as Italians call it), hoik it out and discard.
8. Put the clove in a mortar with the pine nuts, then pound with the pestle and grind the two together into a rough paste.
9. Wash and dry the basil leaves thoroughly. Add a handful at a time to the mortar, with a pinch of salt, then pound and grind the leaves into the paste.
10. Stir through the grated cheeses and loosen the mixture with some of the extra-virgin olive oil; you may not need all of it. You now have a thick but stirrable pesto. If you want to use a stick blender or food processor, the result will be smoother and the flavour very slightly different, but not significant enough to cause face-pulling at the table.

Serves 4-6

This is an edited extract from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison. Hardie Grant Books, RRP $45. Buy now

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