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corzetti in spezie dolci

corzetti in a sweet spiced butter sauce

Here's another historically inspired dish - this time by the pasta and flavours of the Middle Ages / Rennaissance. I recently researched older, pre-tomato condiments for pasta and it seems that back then, cloves and cinnamon were a popular and common combination of flavours... for those who could afford them! (In 14th and 15th centuries spices were of course a luxury product, but as their cost and availability came down so their use became more common and widespread.) 


I’ve put this recipe together more as a tribute to early pasta cooking and as an approximation of what pasta might have tasted like 600-700 years ago, rather than an exact historical recreation! NB The quantities I’ve included in the ingredients list are also very much on a ‘to taste’ basis, but I’m guessing that if you’re not that inspired by alternative pasta flavours you won’t want to go anywhere near this one.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)

  • prepare the ingredients

  • grind the spices

  • grate some cheese

  • boil the pasta

  • melt the butter, add spices

  • combine pasta and sauce

corzetti in a sweet spiced butter sauce

INGREDIENTS

FOR FOUR PEOPLE

  • approx. 2 cloves per person

  • approx 1/3 tspn cinnamon per person

  • 2 tspns parmesan per person

  • 1/2 tblspn butter per person

  • black pepper, parmesan to taste


PASTA

400g dry corzetti / fresh lasagne sheets cut into squares


MANTECATURA (?)

minimal

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METHOD

I started by grinding cloves in a pestle and mortar to as fine a powder as possible, and then added powdered cinnamon. Once I had boiled the corzetti to just before al dente stage, I transferred them to a warm sauce wok which already had a few tablespoons of water and some butter melted.

Let the pasta combine and become coated with the sauce as it finished cooking, and as it does, gradullay add the spices and cheese, and black pepper. Keep tasting the sauce and checking the pasta and stop when it’s cooked and you’ve reached the strength of spices you like. After some initial scepticism, I really enjoyed this taste of history! It’s a great, unusual starter course, and course there’s scope to use the spiced sauce as a base and add smoked bacon, seared prawns or scallops or squid too.

NUTRITION per serving

  • KCAL: 246

  • Fat (g): 7.2

  • Sat Fat (g): 4.3

  • Carb (g): 36.4

  • Sug (g): 1.2

  • Fibre(g): 2.8

  • Prot (g): 7.7

  • Salt (g): 0.2

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