Name: Pasta al Forno (Macaroni in the Oven)
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 200 g (7 oz) prosciutto crudo or coppa; 800 g (1¾ lb) of penne rigate or rigatoni (short-textured macaroni); 1 mozzarella cheese; 2 hard-boiled eggs; 2 tablespoons grated pecorino; 2 tablespoons grated parmesan; ½ kg (1 lb 2 oz) of twice-minced horse meat (or lean beef); ½ litre (18 fl oz) fresh tomato sauce, reduced; ½ litre (18 fl oz) concentrated chicken stock; 2 bayleaves; 1 soupspoon olive oil; 1 garlic clove; 1 few capers; salt; 1 dessertspoon of olive oil; 1 heap of very fine baked crumbs; 1 brandy glass of red wine; 1 dessertspoon olive oil; 2 fresh eggs; chopped parsley; thyme

Preparation info

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Honey from a Weed

By Patience Gray

Published 1986

About

I give the Apulian version, which is far easier to make than to explain; something to prepare at early morning when the bread oven is being fired, but you can put it in a domestic oven. Its peculiarity is the presence of minute polpette, meat balls, dispersed in the pasta.

Ingredients

800 g (1¾ lb) of penne rigate or rigatoni (short-textured macaroni)
200 g</

Method

Boil a cauldron of water, salt it, and cook the penne so that they are not quite al dente (i e undercooked), strain in a colander and pass rapidly under the cold tap.

Then make the polpette. Pound the garlic, add the capers and some salt, pound again. Liberate with the oil and add to the minced meat in a bowl. Pound the mixture. Then work in the raw eggs. Sprinkle w