EPICURIOUS: A SUBLIME SIMPLICITY
Marcella Hazan did for Italian cooking what Elizabeth David did for French cuisine. Both famous food writers introduced readers to tips, techniques and pitfalls of everyday dishes. In Hazan’s case, she often contradicted famous chefs with her experience as a home cook, and five years after her death, her books remain popular.
The basis of good Italian food is the freshness of ingredients, whereas classic French dishes are usually based on elaborate sauces. Hazan taught us that more often than not, simplicity is preferable to complex techniques and a surfeit of ingredients. The other day, for example, I made myself a solitary lunch by chopping up some duck leftover from dinner for a pasta sauce. I sautéed some sliced garlic, crushed red chillies and a couple of tinned anchovies. The duck went into the pan as I boiled the pasta that was allowed to cook until just done. After draining the tagliatelle, I tossed it into the pan with the duck, grated some parmesan cheese over it, together with a little salt and freshly-ground pepper.
While the dish was delicious, I later reflected on Hazan’s advice to keep things simple: did I really need the anchovies and crushed red chillies? Although the ingredients did supply depth of flavour and a bit of zing, did they not distract from the duck?
Simple and fewer ingredients can combine to give a rich flavour
Amazingly, one of Hazan’s most famous recipes for a pasta sauce is also the simplest you’ll ever encounter anywhere. She has deconstructed the basic tomato sauce — the fundamental of the Italian kitchen — into its essentials and presented us with a timeless dish that is sublime in its simplicity. You place a tin of chopped tomatoes into a pan, together with a generous couple of knobs of butter (yes, butter, not olive oil) and a halved onion. Bring the ingredients to a simmer and let them cook for around 45 minutes. Then throw out the onion, add salt and pepper — and that’s it.