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Spaghetti, Spanish Michel
2 cups spaghetti 1 quart tomatoes, fresh or canned 1/2 cup boiled ham 1 onion 1 green pepper 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/2 teaspoon salt Break the spaghetti into inch pieces. Cook in one quart boiling water until tender, add the tomatoes, and cook fifteen minutes longer. Remove the fat from the ham and try it out. Dice onions and green pepper, and fry slowly in this fat until tender. Chop the ham and add it with the onion, green pepper and seasoning to the spaghetti and tomatoes. Put in casserole and bake fifteen minutes in a moderate oven (350 degrees-400 degrees F.).
A plain skillet-and-oven spaghetti from the era before Italian-American red sauce became standard; the tomatoes are barely seasoned and there is no cheese at all. The one thing to get right is the pasta timing, since it keeps cooking long after it leaves the water.
- Undercook the spaghettiThe broken pasta gets fifteen minutes in tomatoes and another fifteen in the oven after it is "tender." Boil it only to the firm side of al dente, three or four minutes short of the package time, or the finished casserole will be mush.
- The cooking water is deliberateThe cooking water is not drained -- One quart of water for two cups of pasta is far less than modern practice, and the recipe never calls for draining, so the starchy liquid appears to become the body of the sauce. Stir often so it does not catch on the bottom.
- "Try it out"An old term for rendering. Chop the ham fat small and cook it slowly in the pan until the liquid fat runs and the solids are golden, then fry the onion and pepper in it. If your boiled ham is lean, use a tablespoon of butter or oil instead.
- Quantities in modern termsTwo cups of dry spaghetti broken into inch lengths is roughly 6 to 8 ounces. A quart of tomatoes is one 28-32 oz can, juice included, or about 2 lb of fresh tomatoes peeled and roughly chopped.
- Boiled hamA wet-cured cooked ham, sold sliced at any deli counter. Half a cup diced is about 3 ounces. Cut it thick rather than buying shaved slices, which disappear into the sauce.
- OvenModerate here is given as 350-400F; 375F is a reasonable middle. Fifteen minutes only melds the dish and dries the surface slightly, as everything in the casserole is already cooked.
- SeasoningHalf a teaspoon of salt for the whole dish is light by current taste, especially since the pasta water is unsalted in the original. Season the tomatoes to taste before it goes in the oven.
- YieldFour modest servings as a main dish, six as a side. A buttered crumb topping or grated cheese, though not in the original, suits the fifteen-minute bake.