Ziti - Jessica´s recipe

Dear all,
You know how I insist on your sending me a recipe to pair with our wines.
Well, this is the 1st recipe I get!! I´m happy!!
It´s from Jessica - jschupak@gmail.com
She suggests that we have this meal with any of our Malbecs.
She thinks it is a challenge to add the "garlic scape pesto" (check in the very end of the recipe).
I think it is worth to give it a try.
Let me know how this meal ends - Salud!

Baked ziti:
Ingredients to serve 2-3:

24 oz Rao's tomato sauce (this is crucial. No one else's sauce compares. FreshDirect has the best price)

1 lb. fresh cow-milk mozzarella (n.b. Garden of Eden's is better than Whole Foods for some reason). Don't use mozzarella di bufala (it melts differently)

1/3 lb ground sirloin garlic (optional)

salt and pepper

about 2/3 of a box of ridged tubular pasta, or (the way I measure it), 2 beer glasses filled with small tubes or 2.5 or 3 glasses of larger tubes

The pasta brand in the Italian store in Chelsea Market is good. Benedetto Cavalieri is good too.

---
1. Boil salted water.

2. Add the tomato sauce to a pan and simmer on medium heat.

3. Add 2-3 cloves' worth chopped garlic to the sauce (optional - I usually prefer not to).
Add some salt and (optional) ground pepper.

4. Add the beef to the tomato sauce. Keep using the spatula to break up the beef.

5. At roughly the same time you begin simmering the beef, add pasta to the boiling water. Stir occasionally, and also stir the meat sauce occasionally and keep breaking up the meat when necessary.

6. Keep an eye on the thickness of the meat sauce and cut the heat to low at your discretion. Sometimes pays to reserve a tiny bit of tomato sauce in case it gets too thick and you need to add more.

7. Remove pasta from the water about a minute BEFORE it reaches perfect al dente. It will continue absorbing moisture in the baking dish. Don't run the pasta under cold water.

8. Add pasta to the meat sauce and stir til the sauce is well distributed.

9. Cut the heat under the meat sauce after about 30 seconds.

10. Transfer sauced pasta to oven-safe baking dish.

11. Tear mozzarella cheese into small chunks manually with your hands. Mix most of it (less about a handful) into the pasta, and distribute evenly.

12. Flatten the top with a spatula. Add the leftover cheese (about a handful) evenly to the top.(steps #1 to #12 can be done in advance and then refrigerated).

13. Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese on top begins to wrinkle, usually about 45 minutes. If you're baking a refrigerated portion, give it longer cooking time (1.25-1.5 hrs) and maybe up the temperature to 375 for awhile. If you like it crispier, bake without a lid. Otherwise, remove the lid when there is about 15 minutes left to bake.

14. Serve with a high-acid, low-tannin red wine, ideally Barbera d'Alba or Barbera d'Asti -- Giacomo Conterno's is the bomb. Sangiovese can also work, preferably Rosso di Montalcino. Oddly, Cabernet Franc works too.

15. Grated parmagianno cheese can be added to taste at the table. A variation of this can be made with ricotta cheese if you're so inclined. You'd use about equal parts tomato sauce, meat, and ricotta, and stir the ricotta into the meat sauce AFTER you cut the heat but BEFORE you add the pasta. This version is vastly inferior, though if you have homemade ricotta (rather than Polly-O) it may have some appeal.

Garlic scape pesto:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/2006/06/my_friend_the_garlic_scape_1.html

Thank you Jessica,
¡Buen apetito !
MV