Chapter 5 · Pasta Fresca e Ragù

Fresh, egg-based pasta, and the slow-cooked sauces built to go with it -- the two things in this kitchen that most reliably take longer than anyone visiting expects. Nothing here is difficult in the sense of being hard to understand. It is difficult in the sense of asking for time you cannot negotiate down, no matter how good a cook you are.

• Ragù della Domenica This has never once been on the laminated menu.
• Tagliatelle Alfredo My father will tell you, given the smallest opening, that a Roman named Alfredo di Lelio invented this dish in 1908, for a wife who had just given birth and could not be…
• Lasagna alla Bolognese This is where the extra ragù goes when there's more of it than even our Sunday table can finish -- though “extra” undersells how much of it a proper lasagna actually… ◆ includes a story from the dining room
• Tortellini in Brodo This is a Christmas dish more than anything else on this menu, and we make an exception to open on the one Sunday a year it falls on, because Christmas without this in… ◆ includes a story from the dining room
• Ravioli di Ricotta e Spinaci Simple enough that it's often the first filled pasta anyone in this family is trusted to make alone, and forgiving enough that it usually survives the attempt.
• Fettuccine al Ragù Bianco Ragù existed in this country long before the tomato did, and this is closer to what it would have tasted like -- meat, wine, milk, and time, with nothing red anywhere in…
• Cannelloni Ripieni The filling here is almost the same as the ravioli two pages back, and I won't pretend otherwise -- ricotta and spinach are a good combination, and there's no rule…
• Gnocchi al Pomodoro My mother judges a gnocchi within one bite, and has never once kept the verdict to herself. ◆ includes a story from the dining room