Ziti are a particular variety of durum wheat pasta – elongated, tubular, about 25 cm long and smooth. Basically, they’re like smooth penne pasta, but they taste like spaghetti. Ziti features a larger diameter than bucatini and, although it’s considered ‘short pasta,’ it’s traditionally used in typical southern Italian recipes – usually broken up. This pasta is an ideal variety for baking – especially for making Italian timbale and omelettes. Or just use it as a regular pasta and season to taste! To bake 4 oz ziti, you usually need about 4 cups water and ½ oz salt, but if you want to bake the ziti in the oven, drain it very much al dente.
Where does the name ‘ziti’ come from?
According to Neapolitan tradition, this pasta was made particularly for engagement parties. That’s why in dialect, this pasta is called ‘ziti’ (meaning ‘fiancé’).
Neapolitan ziti
To prepare this dish from the Campania region, start with the sauce. Sauté celery, carrot, onion and garlic and brown 1 lb of ground veal and 4 oz bacon. Blend with white wine and once the alcohol has evaporated, add 1 ½ cups tomato purée. Add salt, pepper and a little hot water (as needed). The sauce should cook for about two hours. Once ready, cook the broken pasta in boiling salted water, drain it and dress it with the sauce. Pour into an oven dish and sprinkle with 4 oz caciocavallo cheese and 4 oz mozzarella. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes and let rest before serving.
Ziti with lard
This recipe is very simple and quick, but tasty at the same time. Prepare a sauté with chopped onion and oil. Add some colonnade lard. Pour some tomato purée over the mixture and continue cooking. Season with salt and pepper and add some basil leaves. Break the pasta and cook it in boiling salted water. Drain and dress the pasta with the sauce and plenty of grated pecorino cheese.
Genoese ziti
This dish features a white sauce or a very tasty meat sauce – the classic Genoese. Start with a sauté of celery, carrots and onion. Brown about 1 lb 6 oz girello or magatello, then blend with white wine and once the alcohol has evaporated, add two bay leaves and let the meat cook again with the lid over low heat for about two hours. Add hot water or broth from time to time so that the seasoning does not dry out too much. At the end, salt and pepper the meat a little bit and break it apart (high quality meat should easily fall apart – almost like butter). With the sauce, season the broken pasta (that’s been cooked and drained al dente) and complete with grated parmesan cheese.
Ziti with eggplant
A recipe that looks like pasta alla norma because it has fried eggplant and a very tasty cheese – the Sicilian caciocavallo cheese – instead of salted ricotta. The particularity of this dish is that you bake it! Prepare a simple tomato and onion sauce and add some basil. Separately, cut the eggplant into cubes and fry in boiling oil. Drain well and mix with the sauce. Season the cooked pasta (whole or broken into pieces) and transfer to an oven dish. Sprinkle everything with Sicilian caciocavallo cheese and cook at 400°F for 10 minutes.
Cupola di ziti
Create a beatiful ‘dome’ (‘cupola’ in Italian) of ziti if you want to impress your guests! Simply use a special mold to bake your pasta in the oven (with a dome shape). Dress the pasta with a simple sauce made from tomato, caciocavallo cheese and mozzarella or with a ragù. You can also use peas or eggplant like the previous recipe – that just depends on personal preference. Butter and sprinkle a mold with breadcrumbs and fill it with the pasta mixture. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes. You can use whole ziti, cook them separately and use them to line the baking pan. Then use the other broken ones to fill the dome shape. To make it even prettier, place one ziti on top of the other one at a time to cover the sides of the mold.