fusilli alla pappone
This is a good example of Hazan’s tendency to give a fine dish an unappealing name, but she didn’t write in English, relying (mainly on her husband) to translate. The recipe first appeared in The Classic Italian Cookbook, 1973, when its English sub-title was Fusilli with creamy zucchini and basil sauce and the updated title is surely not better. The Italian name can be translated as Pimp’s fusilli, although she makes no general remarks about the recipe in either version, and I’ve no idea where that name comes from. The recipes are very similar but with some variations in the proportions of the ingredients.
Courgettes are cut into sticks about 3 mm square and 75 mm long. They are fried to a light brown in plenty of oil and then drained. The preliminary frying can be done in advance. While the pasta is boiling, a small quantity of light béchamel sauce is made and seasoned. When the pasta is nearly cooked, the courgettes are added to the sauce to reheat and then, off the heat, butter and egg yolk are added for enrichment. The drained pasta is tossed with this sauce, a mixture of grated parmesan & pecorino romano and plenty of fresh basil leaves, torn by hand (although the original recipe said chopped).
This is a rather rich sauce.
Marcella Hazan
Hazan’s preferred pasta choice is either kind of factory-made fusilli: the short stubby ones or the long corkscrew strands.
Despite being the principal ingredient, the courgette sticks are almost a background note in the finished sauce. The added butter and egg yolk add richness. The revised recipe halved the quantity of egg yolk, but who cracks an egg and uses half of it? A very pleasing sauce.
This dish is featured in the pasta chapter of Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Macmillan, 1992). This blog aims to illustrate and describe each pasta recipe from the book.
Classic Pasta Dishes 