Home made rigatoni with cooked ham and stracchino
When I was a child mum didn’t have much time to cook dinner, she would come back home late from work, she was tired and spending a lot of time in the kitchen was the last thing she wanted to do, she would rather talk with me about my day and play with me. Besides, let’s face it, she just didn’t like cooking… Year after year she grew familiar with the kitchen and she started appreciating the cooking process, now she has her signature dishes, she can whip up a meal in ten minutes and she always manages to make something good from scratches.
Back at that times our dinners were often potato omelets, tuna and parsley frittate in summer, sometimes a toast with ham and mozzarella, sometimes stracchino and cooked ham with fresh bread. Stracchino is an Northern Italian cow’s-milk cheese, it is eaten very young and has a soft and creamy texture, with a mild and delicate flavour.
Especially this last combination, cooked ham and stracchino, is a powerful backdoor to my childhood, it reminds me of winter evenings spent with a comfortable pjs, fast dinner eaten quickly in the kitchen to move on the sofa in front of the fire to watch a movie all together. Cooked ham and stracchino, sometimes served with a slice of crusty bread toasted on the fireplace. It was simple, it tasted of home, of a mother who loves you and gives you her time, fun and cuddles after a long working day.
Cooked ham and stracchino became the dressing for a rustic homemade pasta. This was the first time I ventured myself in something different from tagliatelle or tagliolini. Thanks to the new Moulinex Masterchef Gourmet I made durum wheat and semolina rigatoni, one of my favourite pasta shape, as there is no better shape to collect the sauce…
Just a bunch of good seasonal ingredients, here’s the secret of this recipe: hazelnuts as an autumn gift, a couple of heaping tablespoons of stracchino to dress the rigatoni and melt with the cooked ham. This is a unique dish that everyone will appreciate, made even more special by the pasta that you can make just for the people you love.
This is the first recipe of the new exciting cooperation with Moulinex. More recipes will come in the upcoming weeks!
Rigatoni di grano duro con prosciutto cotto, stracchino e nocciole
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Ingredients to make rigatoni
- 150 g of durum wheat flour
- 150 g of durum wheat semolina
- 20 ml of extra virgin olive oil
- 120 ml of water
- Salt
Ingredients to make the sauce
- 200 g cooked ham
- A bunch of sage leaves
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 50 g hazelnuts, chopped
- 100 g of stracchino
Instructions
- Pour the flour into the bowl of the Moulinex Masterchef Gourmet, add the extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt. Use the stand mixer with the hook to make fresh pasta and pour the water gradually. Knead for about 5 minutes until you have large crumbs of dough. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour.
- After this time use the kit to make fresh pasta and choose the rigatoni shape.
- Gradually add the crumbs of dough into the funnel and cut the rigatoni to a length of about 5 cm with a clean and precise cut. Dust with semolina flour to prevent them from sticking, place them well apart on a cutting board and let them dry for an hour.
- Make the sauce for the rigatoni. Mince the ham and cook it on medium flame for a few minutes with some of olive oil, the finely chopped sage leaves and the hazelnuts.
- Cook the pasta in boiling salted water for a few minutes, drain it al dente and pour it in the pan. Add the stracchino, stir to mix and serve immediately.
You must be patient, two more weeks and the high season of cooking classes will be over, so I’ll be back here, more and more often. My kitchen cabinets are overflowing with new ingredients, books are full of pieces of paper to mark recipes I’m dying to try and I crave my time in the kitchen to cook, photograph and write. I’ll be back.
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Oh, beautiful! That dish is so comforting and scrumptious looking. I’d love to own such a great machine…
Cheers,
Rosa
I want Moulinex now!!!!!!! Awesome pasta darling and I shall patiently wait :))
I’ve got to get myself one of those! Looks like so much fun to play around with! Love the idea of mincing the ham too!
What a lovely comforting dish this is – very clever to make that sort of pasta too. I really like the story that goes with it, in fact it’s making me feel I should spend less time cooking dinner when my daughter’s home from school. More play and toasted sandwiches for us in future!
This looks heavenly! oooh so good! Lovely to have dishes that bring you back to you childhood moments. And that machine looks like a handy thing to have!
An awesome machine and what a fun pasta. I can’t wait to own one.
I love your photos, and this looks delicious, as usual
I will have to see if I can find stracchino anywhere.
Do you make any flavored pastas? They are all the rage in France now and I’ve been thinking of trying a homemade version for myself.
Ciao Holly! I make often a cocoa pasta, I have yet to try other versions! 🙂
So lovely shapes and colors. This dish seems like the perfect comfort food. I can almost smell it just looking at the photographs. Thanks for the inspiration, hon!