A very tasty and festive dish, Italian inspired. Pasta for this can be taken in any shape. But just as importantly, preparing the sauce, tomato gravy, and everything else can be done in advance, and then put everything in a mold and quickly bake.

List of ingredients

tomato sauce:

• tomato paste - 2 tbsp. l.
• small onion - 1 pc.
• small carrots - 1 pc.
• oil - 2-3 tbsp. l.
• pepper and salt - to taste

bechamel sauce

• milk - 500 ml
• butter - 50 g
• flour - 2 tbsp. l.
• salt - to taste
• nutmeg - 1 pinch

for pasta:

• rigatoni – 200 g
• minced meat - 400 g
• onion - 1 pc.
• oil - 2-3 tbsp. l.
• salt and pepper - to taste
• hard cheese - 80 g

Preparation:

1. The pasta needs to be cooked in advance, about five minutes, and rinsed in cold water. Place on a table or board to prevent them from sticking together.
2. Let's prepare the tomato sauce. Cut the onions and carrots into cubes. Fry on oli until golden brown.
3. Add tomato paste and a little water if you have fresh tomatoes will be even better. Cut and add and simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Taste it, you can add a little sugar.
4. To prepare the minced meat, you need to finely chop the onion and fry it until translucent, add the minced meat and cook until done. Add salt and pepper to taste, and a couple of spoons of tomato sauce.
5. To prepare bechamel sauce, we need to melt the butter in a thick-bottomed saucepan.
6. Then add flour and fry until golden brown, stirring continuously.
7. Pour in the milk in a thin stream and, stirring with a whisk, brew our sauce so that there are no lumps. Even if you have lumps, don’t worry, strain the sauce through a fine sieve.
8. Add a little nutmeg and salt to taste.
9. The preparatory work is completed, now you can assemble the casserole. Place tomato sauce on the bottom of the mold.
10. Then we stuff the pasta and lay it out in a tight line.
11. Then pour the slightly cooled bechamel sauce over everything.
12. Sprinkle with grated cheese.
13. Bake everything at 190°C. about 15 minutes until the cheese is golden.

How much does rigatoni pasta cost (average price per 1 kg)?

Moscow and Moscow region.

Over the centuries, a distinctive culinary tradition has developed in Italy. The Italians were able to introduce many recipes for real masterpieces of culinary art and craftsmanship into the world tradition. Of course, pizza is considered one of the most famous dishes of Italian cuisine. However, Italian pasta is not inferior in popularity to its compatriot. We agree, pizza began to be made in ancient times. True, pasta is one of the oldest national dishes of Italy, which have been produced in the state since time immemorial.

Currently, Italian pasta is a kind of symbol of the country. Moreover, all pasta products produced in Italy are considered first-class food products. Italian pasta is also a kind of sign of high quality. There are about over 350 types of Italian pasta, among which you can find a pasta product for every taste. Italian pasta will leave few people indifferent, especially if the dish is prepared in accordance with the classical canons of the Italian culinary tradition.

Today, we want to tell you about one of the most popular types of Italian pasta, rigatoni or rigatoni. Along with penne pasta, fusilli, maceroni, and cellentani, rigatoni pasta is a short variety of Italian pasta. This means that rigatone pasta is distinguished by its small size. As a rule, rigatone pasta does not exceed 4 centimeters in length. For residents of our latitudes, rigatone pasta has also been familiar for a long time.

True, in the interpretation of domestic pasta producers, rigatone pasta was transformed into a product called “horns”, only not curved, but straight. It is worth noting that Italian rigatoni pasta is made from high-quality flour. The main feature of rigatoni pasta is that when cooked, the pasta significantly increases in size. For this reason, in Italy, rigatoni pasta is used to make casseroles; in addition, stuffed rigatoni is very popular.

Rigatoni pasta is distinguished not only by its excellent taste, but also by its distinctive consumer properties. for example, when cooked, rigatoni pasta does not soften and does not lose its shape, it only increases in size. In order to properly prepare rigatoni pasta, you need to remember some subtleties. First, you should take your culinary process seriously and purchase quality rigatoni pasta. Nowadays, ordinary domestic pasta is sold under the guise of Italian pasta, which in fact is very different from real pasta.

Secondly, rigatoni pasta, like any other pasta, is primarily an independent dish and in no case a side dish. Pasta simply cannot get boring, because... There are thousands of recipes for preparing the product. Never overcook rigatoni pasta and follow the recommendations that the manufacturer usually places on the package. Cook rigatoni pasta for no more than 12-15 minutes.

Moreover, you should cook the rigatoni pasta in a large amount of water and add a few tablespoons of olive oil to the water before cooking. Rigatoni pasta does not need to be rinsed after the pasta is ready to eat. Rigatoni pasta is served with hot, freshly prepared sauce just like pasta.

Calorie content of rigatoni pasta 220 kcal

Energy value of rigatoni pasta (Ratio of proteins, fats, carbohydrates - bju).

Step 1: Prepare the onions and garlic.

Using a vegetable peeler, peel the onions and garlic. Afterwards, we wash them under cold running water to remove any kind of contaminants and dry the vegetables with paper kitchen towels. Then place them one by one on a cutting board and cut the onion into cubes until 1 centimeter


Simply finely chop the garlic into pieces of arbitrary shape until 3 - 4 millimeters. Place the cuts on separate deep plates.

Step 2: prepare the meat sauce.

Turn the stove on to medium level and place a non-stick saucepan with a thick bottom on it. Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a container. Add the onion to the heated fat and simmer it, stirring with a tablespoon for 2 - 3 minutes until soft and transparent. Then add garlic to the onion and simmer the 2 vegetables together for another 1 minute, just so that the garlic releases its spicy aroma.


Now add to the vegetables 1 kilogram of ground beef and break the meat ingredient into smaller pieces with a tablespoon.


Fry the minced meat until light brown, this process will take approximately 10 – 15 minutes.


Then add salt, ground black pepper and 1 a teaspoon of ground thyme. Mix the meat with spices and simmer for another 1 minute.


Then, using a canning key, open 2 cans of tomatoes in their own juice and transfer the aromatic tomatoes into a saucepan with the stewed meat and vegetables.


We also break them into smaller pieces with a tablespoon, reduce the temperature of the stove to the lowest level, cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer the meat sauce for 30 minutes, stirring the mixture periodically with a tablespoon.


In 30 minutes the tomatoes will boil and give a lot of juice, remove the lid from the saucepan and simmer the minced meat for more 30 minutes, until the liquid has almost completely evaporated.

Step 3: Cook the rigatoni.

Now we take a package of rigatoni pasta and carefully read the instructions, it will indicate how long to cook this pasta. This pasta loves water very much, so we pour it into a large saucepan a little more than for cooking the usual pasta we all know. Place the container with the liquid on the stove, turned on at a high level, and bring the water to a boil.


Once boiling, add the rigatoni to the pan and reduce the heat on the stove to medium.


Add a little olive oil to the boiling water, 2 tablespoons is enough. We also put a couple of pinches of salt there, not forgetting that the meat sauce was salted, and cook the pasta, stirring occasionally, for as long as indicated in the instructions. Basically this process takes from 10 to 25 minutes, depending on the type of flour and the density of the paste.

Step 4: bring the dish to full readiness.

In 30 minutes When the meat sauce is fully cooked, turn off the burner underneath, cover the saucepan with a lid and finish cooking the rigatoni. Place the finished pasta in a colander and leave for 1 – 2 minutes to allow any remaining water to drain. Attention: Rigatoni pasta should never be washed with water, even boiling water!


During this time, we arm ourselves with a fine grater and use it to grate into a deep plate 50 – 60 gram of Parmesan cheese. Then, using a tablespoon, divide the rigatoni into deep plates and place a couple of spoons of meat sauce on top of the pasta.


In turn, sprinkle the sauce with a generous portion of Parmesan cheese and serve the aromatic dish to the table.

Step 5: Serve the rigatoni.

Rigatoni is served hot. These pasta can be combined with several types of sauces; this recipe describes a fairly easy to prepare, but very satisfying and tasty meat sauce. But if you wish, you can prepare rigatoni with cheese sauce, white cream sauce, garlic or vegetable sauce, it all depends on your taste. The ideal light aperitif for rigatoni is sweet or semi-sweet white wine, but in our case, a glass of semi-sweet red wine will go well with beef. Enjoy!

Bon appetit!

If desired, you can add any other spices and herbs that are suitable for cooking meat dishes to the sauce.

Instead of tomatoes in their own juice, you can use fresh tomatoes, but first you need to remove the skin from them, chop these vegetables in a blender and then add them to the minced meat in a saucepan.

Instead of ground beef, you can use any other minced meat, but do not forget about the fat content. For example, if you prefer minced pork, then after stewing it, you should remove excess fat from the pan and then add the tomatoes. If it is minced chicken, then on the contrary it is worth adding more fat so that the sauce does not turn out too dry.

Instead of olive oil, you can use any other vegetable oil, as long as it is refined.

If desired, you can add 20–30 grams of chopped Parmesan cheese to the meat sauce.

Rigatoni is a type of pasta. They have a tubular shape, which has longitudinal corrugation on the outside, and is smooth on the inside. The tubes can be straight or slightly curved.

On average, each tube is about five centimeters long and up to two centimeters in diameter.

This type of pasta is great for stuffing. I want to offer you a recipe for stuffed rigatoni with meat in sour cream and tomato sauce. Usually, to prepare this dish, I buy rigatoni from Fillini in the form of cones or tubes.

To prepare we need these ingredients:
one pack of rigatoni in the form of cones,
0.5 kg pork or beef pulp,
one medium sized onion
100 g hard cheese,
three garlic cloves,
butter for greasing the pan.

to prepare the sauce:
two tablespoons of butter,
two tablespoons of wheat flour,
two tablespoons of tomato paste,
one glass of water or any broth,
one glass of sour cream of any fat content,
salt to taste,
paprika.

1. After boiling, cook the rigatoni in lightly salted water for five minutes over medium heat. Place in a colander and rinse under cold water. We wash the meat and pass it through a meat grinder along with onions and garlic cloves. Add salt and ground black pepper to the prepared minced meat to taste. Mix everything thoroughly. The filling is ready.

2. Take half-boiled pasta and carefully stuff it with minced meat.

3. Grease the baking dish generously with butter. Place the stuffed rigatoni close to each other in the pan.

4. Prepare sour cream and tomato sauce. Melt the required amount of butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add a couple of tablespoons of flour and stir quickly.

5. Add water to the resulting mixture in small portions, stirring constantly so that all lumps of flour dissolve. The mass should have a homogeneous consistency.

6. Add a glass of sour cream of any fat content and stir gently with a wooden spatula.

7. Now add tomato paste, salt to taste and paprika. Also stir gently until smooth.

Rigatoni pasta is a short pasta made into thick, grooved tubes.

Before you start cooking pasta, you should warn novice cooks that pasta for Italians is not a side dish at all, it is a first course, along with soup. Moreover, pasta is truly the most important dish in Italian cuisine.

Rigatoni (2)

You can’t get tired of pasta, since a huge variety of cooking recipes and a great variety of types of pasta allow you to cook it in different ways, improvise and create new recipes. True, in the 5 thousand years that Italians have been eating pasta, some chef has already prepared pasta at least once according to a recipe similar to yours, but that doesn’t matter, does it?

So, pasta. Even after reading the name, a real Italian will tell you whether the pasta is thick or thin. The trick is in the suffix. The suffix - ini means thin paste, and the suffix - onee thick. Maybe you think that pasta is just pasta, no matter how you cook it? And you will be wrong. Experienced cooks know that different types of pasta require not only different cooking times, but also completely different sauces.

Long pasta “loves” a sauce with a thinner consistency, while thick and short pasta prefers a thicker sauce with pieces of vegetables and meat.

Rigatoni pasta, which we will talk about, is a short pasta made in the form of thick corrugated tubes. Yes, yes, exactly corrugated ones, this is very important. The fact is that such a non-smooth surface increases the area of ​​contact between the paste and the sauce and absorbs more sauce.

If you are thinking of making rigatoni pasta, then you should know a few important secrets.

First of all, don't overcook the pasta. Italians believe that pasta loves company, and not only when it is eaten. The cook should not leave the pan with the cooking pasta, so as not to miss the moment when it reaches the “al dente” state, when the outside is already cooked, and the thin inner layer is slightly undercooked.

The second important point is that pasta loves water. It must be boiled in a large amount of water and under no circumstances should it be broken. However, the question of how not to break the pasta is not entirely relevant for rigatoni; rigatoni is a short pasta.

Third. Some Italian chefs recommend adding a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil to boiling water before cooking pasta, this will help the pasta not stick together. It must be said that pasta made from durum wheat does not tend to stick together when cooked, but oil will not hurt.

The fourth important point - after putting the paste in boiling water, be sure to stir so that the paste does not stick to the bottom and walls of the pan or stick together into lumps.

Fifth secret - do not pour the water from under the finished pasta into the sink, leave a little. If you find your pasta sauce a little dry, you can add a little pasta water to the dish to make it juicier.

The sixth secret regarding the preparation of rigatoni pasta: do not rinse the pasta even with boiling water. Just drain in a colander and let the water drain, and then brush with butter. The fact is that rigatoni pasta that has not been washed with water adheres better to the sauce.

Well, the seventh trick is directly related to the sixth. The sauce for the rigatoni pasta should be prepared at the same time as the pasta itself, so that as soon as the pasta is ready, immediately mix them together. If the recipe takes a little longer to prepare the sauce, start with it, and only then boil the pasta.

Now that you know all the secrets of making rigatoni pasta, choose a recipe to your liking and feel free to cook delicious Italian pasta!