Pink "Rosato" Pasta Sauce - So Simple and So Good!

Pasta is the quintessential Italian food.  While noodle-like foods existed in China as far back as 3000 BCE, the often-repeated story that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy on his return from China has long been debunked. Polo returned to Italy in 1295 after twenty years of travel away from Italy but in 1279 a Genoese soldier listed in the inventory of his estate a basket of dried pasta ('una bariscella plena de macaronis').

Pasta most likely came to Italy through the Arab invasion.  In their article "The History of Pasta" Diana Viola and Margaret E. Walker note that:

The first certain record of noodles cooked by boiling is in the Jerusalem Talmud, written in Aramaic in the 5th century AD. The word used for the noodles was itriyah. In Arabic references this word stands for the dried noodles purchased from a vendor, rather than homemade noodles which would have been fresh.  Dried noodles are portable, while fresh must be eaten immediately. More than likely, pasta was introduced during the Arab conquests of Sicily, carried in as a dry staple. The Arab geographer, Al Idrisi wrote that a flour-based product in the shape of strings was produced in Palermo, then an Arab colony.

The misconception that the tomato has been central to Italian cuisine since its introduction from the Americas is also often repeated. Though the tomato was introduced from the Spanish New World to European botanists in the 16th century, tomato sauce made a relatively late entry in Italian cuisine: in Antonio Latini's cookbook Lo scalco alla moderna (Naples, 1692) was chef to the Spanish viceroy of Naples, and one of his tomato recipes is for sauce alla spagnuola, "in the Spanish style." The use of tomato sauce with pasta appears for the first time in the Italian cookbook L'Apicio moderno, by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi, edited in 1790.

Until tomato sauce came along, pasta was dry and was eaten with your fingers. Many believe that when liquid sauce came along it demanded the use of a fork, and the manners of the common man were changed forever.  Pasta sauce shaped the history of manners as well as the history of food.

While the most famous types of pasta sauce in Italy are red sauces made from tomatoes, other ways of preparing pasta developed over the centuries.  One of those was hot pasta tossed with butter and grated cheese known as "Pasta al Burro".  As the cheese melts, it emulsifies the liquids to form a smooth and rich coating on the pasta (cream and garlic were sometimes added).  Americans know this as "Alfredo sauce" after an enterprising 1914 Roman restauranteur named Alfredo di Lelio who made it popular with tourists and served it with his own name attached.

While red tomato sauces and cream sauces are the norms for pasta there is a lesser know sauce that I actually like better than either of these--a pink sauce (known as "Rosato") which is a creamy tomato sauce--kind of a combination of the two.

It's typically made by adding cream to a rich tomato sauce, but I had some extra cream cheese that needed to be used up and tried that instead of the cream...it was fabulous!  The slightly sour savor of the cream cheese blended beautifully with the tang of the tomatoes and resulted in a superbly succulent sauce!  How's that for alotta' aliteration? ;->

Here is how to make Po' Papa Joe's Rich Rosato Sauce

• 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 large Onion - diced
• 2 Sweet Bell Peppers - diced (different colors provide subtle flavor enhancements)
• 2.5 lb. Tomatoes - can be blanched with skins removed or canned diced or whole tomatoes
• 8 oz. Cream Cheese
• 8 oz. Mushrooms - thickly sliced
• 1 Tbsp Salt

Caramelize the onions in the olive oil by cooking on medium high stirring frequently until the they are clear.  Then add the peppers and fry until they are soft and the onions are slightly browned.  Add the tomatoes and salt.  Bring to a boil and then simmer on low for at least an hour.  Add the Cream Cheese and blend with a stick blender until the sauce is smooth.  Add the mushrooms and simmer again until the mushrooms are tender.

Serve over hot pasta (I used multi-colored penne rigate) and top with grated parmesan cheese.  Nice accompaniments are salad, fresh bread etc.

BTW we drank the ever-refreshing Agua de Sandia with this meal and it was memorably delicious!