Pasta al forno

Before you start

• an oven
• about 1h15

Ingredients

Serves 4 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 280gdried rigatoni — tubes, not strands — they hold the sauce and keep their shape in the tin
• 280gbeef mince
• 2 tinstinned tomatoes
• 180gbuffalo mozzarella — torn and drained on kitchen paper for ten minutes, or it waters the dish
• 40gparmesan
• 2 tbspolive oil
• 1onion
• 2garlic cloves
• 1 handfulbasil

Method

7 steps

1. chop · 6m

   Onion diced fine, garlic sliced, mozzarella torn and left to drain.

2. fry · 14m

   Mince browned hard, then the onion and garlic softened in with it. The beef has to be cooked right through here — no pink — because the oven only ever reheats what goes into it.

3. simmer · 20m

   Tomatoes crushed in and cooked down until thick and glossy. Slack sauce makes a sloppy tray.

4. boil · 7m

   Pasta in well-salted water for HALF the time on the packet and not a minute more. Cooked through now, it comes out of the oven as paste.

5. fold · 6m

   Pasta, sauce, most of the mozzarella and half the parmesan turned together with a ladle of the pasta water, then into a buttered dish with the rest of the cheese on top.

6. roast · 25m walk away

   At 200°C until the top is brown in patches and the edges have gone crisp and dark. The crust round the rim is the reason for making it this way.

7. rest · 10m walk away

   Ten minutes on the side, then basil over.