The broth turns thick enough to coat a spoon without any cream, thanks to mashed chickpeas and the starch from ditalini cooked right in the pot. Whole chickpeas and the small pasta keep some bite, while rosemary and tomato paste give it a warm, savory base. It sits somewhere between soup and pasta, and is eaten with a spoon.
Mashed beans and pasta starch do the thickening that cream would do elsewhere. About a third of the cannellini get crushed with a fork and stirred back, turning the broth cloudy and smooth, and the ditalini then cooks in the same pot, releasing more starch as it swells. The aroma comes from garlic and a sprig of fresh rosemary; the crushed tomatoes are poured in before the garlic browns, and scraping the pot then lifts the cooked-on bits into the soup. Because the pasta keeps drinking broth, the soup tightens quickly; small splashes of water bring it back to something you eat with a spoon rather than a fork.
Broccoli, zucchini, bell pepper, and peas each keep their own bite in this light spaghetti, which uses no cream at all. A splash of pasta water turns the olive oil into a thin glossy coating, leaving the vegetables to carry most of the flavor. The broccoli needs a head start and the peas go in last; the pan comes off the heat once the colors brighten and only the edges soften, before anything turns limp. Whatever vegetables are at their freshest work in the same way.
Four anchovy fillets melt into the garlic oil over medium-low heat until nothing fish-shaped is left, only a savory base under the tomatoes. Halved black olives and capers follow, and between them and the anchovies the sauce rarely needs added salt. The risk lies in reduction: when the sauce thickens too fast its saltiness turns sharp, and lowering the heat then does more good than simmering longer.
Cut a square of pastitsio and three layers should show clearly: macaroni, a cinnamon-scented beef sauce, and a thick cap of bechamel. Each layer has its own way to fail. Macaroni boiled fully soft keeps softening in the oven, and a beef sauce with liquid pooling underneath soaks the pasta below it. The 15-minute rest after baking lets sauce and pasta set, so a knife pressed straight down leaves all three layers clean.
Two tablespoons of vodka bubble for about a minute, long enough to soften the harsh alcohol smell but not so long that the aroma disappears. The tomato puree reduces until its color deepens before any cream goes in, and from that point the pan stays at its lowest heat so the sauce never boils and splits. The finished sauce should slip into the hollow centers of the penne as well as cling to the outside.
Boiled potato gnocchi get a second cooking in pancetta fat, browning on the bottom while staying soft inside. A splash of chicken stock reduced with Parmigiano makes just enough sauce to coat each piece thinly. Perilla oil, a nutty Korean oil pressed from perilla seeds, is poured in only after the heat is off so its aroma survives, and shredded perilla leaves from the same plant echo it on top.
Blended with walnuts, perilla leaves make a pesto whose scent recalls perilla oil: slightly bitter, quietly nutty and nothing like basil. Bite-size pieces of chicken breast stay lean and plain, letting the pesto carry the flavor, and the hollow penne fill with sauce.
The pesto never touches a hot pan. Spaghetti goes from the pot into a large bowl and the sauce is tossed through it there, away from the stove, keeping the basil's raw aroma and bright green color. The processor is the other source of heat, and short pulses with the sides scraped down keep long runs from warming the inside and dulling the basil. Pine nuts are toasted dry only to a light gold, and the olive oil goes into the processor in two or three additions, stopping when the pesto is thick yet still drops slowly from a spoon.
The brown water left from soaking dried porcini carries an earthy mushroom flavor through the whole sauce, while a mix of fresh mushrooms provides the bite. White wine, butter and Parmigiano bind it without cream so it clings to wide tagliatelle, and the truffle paste is only a finishing scent.
Without a pasta wrapper, these ricotta and spinach dumplings hold together through moisture control rather than extra flour. Loading the mixture with flour keeps them intact but makes them dense and heavy.
Rendered guanciale fat, not olive oil, carries this Roman sauce. Six to eight minutes over medium-low heat melts the fat out and crisps the edges before the chili, white wine, and hand-crushed tomatoes go in. The tomatoes keep a little texture, and the reduced sauce lodges in the ridges of the rigatoni. Pancetta works when guanciale is hard to find. Both the pork and the Pecorino Romano bring salt, so salt only after tasting.
Roasting the kabocha squash until its edges brown concentrates its sweetness, and once blended it thickens the sauce without any flour. Even with cream and Parmigiano, the sauce stays a bright orange, with nutmeg rounding out the squash flavor. The squash can be roasted a day ahead, and butternut squash works in its place.
Even with no meat in the dish, each cube of eggplant, seared over high heat until just browned, soaks up tomato and soy sauce like a sponge and turns soft and savory. Sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds lend a nutty Korean finish, and fresh basil sits on top.
Searing the shrimp first, lifting them out and returning them only at the end keeps them tender instead of simmering in cream. The garlic and cream sauce is made in the same pan, and the sweetness of the shrimp lightens the rich Parmesan and cream.
Five sliced garlic cloves cook slowly in butter over low heat, turning sweet and fragrant while staying pale. The large shrimp then get about 90 seconds a side, just until pink, so the centers stay tender. White wine lifts the garlic butter off the pan and reduces into a light sauce, and the lemon juice squeezed in at the end cuts through the butter while red pepper flakes leave a mild, lingering heat.
Finely chopped shiitake and button mushrooms stand in for ground meat, and a tablespoon of soy sauce reduced with tomato paste and white wine gives the ragu a salty depth. Mushroom liquid left in the pan is almost always behind a watery sauce. The mushrooms stay on high heat until they stop steaming and brown, and only then does the ragu cling to the wide pappardelle.
Sirloin is seared, rested for five minutes and sliced over the noodles, while the sauce comes from the same pan: meat juices, butter, sliced garlic, soy sauce and a spoon of mentsuyu, the Japanese bonito-and-kelp noodle base. The pasta water is added and emulsified quickly into a glossy coating, before long simmering can turn the soy sauce harsh and salty.
Short rib cut into 3cm pieces braises with red wine, whole tomatoes and soy sauce for an hour or more, until a spatula presses it apart into shreds. Its collagen melts into a sticky sauce that coats the wide pappardelle, and the soy brings a fermented saltiness ordinary Bolognese lacks.
Chicken thigh marinated for 10 minutes in soy sauce, honey, and garlic darkens into a sticky glaze as the sugars catch in a hot pan. Left untouched for the first minute, the pieces color properly. Tomato passata cuts through that sweet-salty coating, and garlic shows up twice, in the marinade and again in the sauce. Thigh stays juicy under high heat where breast would dry out. Since soy already brings plenty of salt, the Parmesan is grated in last, to taste.
Briny olives, salty capers and anchovies, and red pepper flakes all land in the same tomato sauce, which comes out bold and sharply defined after eight minutes of reduction. The spaghetti leaves the water a minute early and finishes in the sauce pan with reserved pasta water over high heat, where the starch binds everything to the strands and leaves no watery pool behind.
The sauce comes almost entirely from the clams. As purged clams open in dry white wine, their briny juices hit the pan, and a minute of hard tossing with olive oil and a few spoonfuls of pasta water binds them into a glossy coating.
Pre-cooked octopus is patted dry and seared hard over high heat so the outside turns chewy, then tossed with penne in a tomato cream sauce warmed up with gochugaru (Korean chili flakes). The sauce fills the tubes of the penne, so every forkful with a piece of octopus brings plenty of it along.
Shrimp and squid are cooked only until their surfaces turn white, then left to finish in the simmering tomatoes, where six or seven minutes of gentle heat cooks them through while they stay tender. As the tomato reduces it soaks up the juices the seafood releases.