Penne Lisce With Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

1½ cups Penne Lisce pasta
3 quarts boiling water
3 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup bread or cracker crumbs
1 tablespoon butter for baking

Cream Sauce

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1½ milk

Makes 4 servings.

Preparation:

  • Add pasta to the salted boiling water, and cook it until is al dente (cooked so as to be firm but not hard).
  • To prepare the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, salt, and pepper, stir until smooth, and gradually add the milk, which must be hot, stirring rapidly so that no lumps form.
  • Cook the cream sauce until it thickens and then add it to the pasta. Pour all into a baking dish, sprinkle the bread or cracker crumbs over the top, dot with butter, and bake until the crumbs are brown. Serve hot.

Real Cooking
Did You Know?
Italian pasta is traditionally cooked al dente (Italian: "firm to the bite", meaning not too soft).

Outside Italy, dry pasta is frequently made from other types of flour (such as wheat flour), but this yields a softer product that cannot be cooked al dente.

There are many types of wheat flour with varying gluten and protein depending on variety of grain used.

Particular varieties of pasta may also use other grains and milling methods to make the flour, as specified by law.

Some pasta varieties, such as pizzoccheri, are made from buckwheat flour.

Fresh pasta may include eggs (pasta all'uovo 'egg pasta').

Whole wheat pasta has become increasingly popular because of its perceived health benefits. Most whole wheat pastas have a mixture of whole grain and regular grain ingredients.