Pasta e Patate Ara Tijeddra (Traditional Italian Calabrian Baked Pasta and Potatoes) Pasta e patate ara tijeddra is what Calabria does when there is almost nothing in the house. Potatoes, onion, a little tomato, a handful of short pasta, grated pecorino and stale bread turned into crumbs, all layered into an earthenware dish and pushed into the oven until the top sets into a dark crust and the bottom catches slightly against the clay. There is no sauce made separately and no

Rigatoni with Italian Tomato Sauce (Rigatoni al Sugo) Sugo is not a recipe in Italy, it is a category. The word covers any sauce that seasons pasta, polenta, gnocchi or rice, and an Italian who says pasta al sugo at home almost always means the same thing: tomato, olive oil, garlic or onion, basil, and nothing else that would complicate it. What makes the dish worth writing about is not the ingredient list, which anyone can guess, but the four or five decisions that separate

Rigatoni finished in a Tuscan meat ragu of beef, pork, red wine, tomato, rosemary and sage.