Anelletti al Forno

In Sicily, this is the pasta of celebrations. Baptisms, first communions, Sunday lunch when the entire family gathers. The timballo, as they also call it, arrives at the table unmolded from its pan, a golden dome that everyone reaches for the crust of first. The children get the crusty edges. This is how it has always been.

The first useful thing to know about Italian cooking is that, as such, it actually doesn't exist. There is Sicilian cooking, and within Sicily there is the cooking of Palermo, which claims this dish as its own. The anelletti themselves, those small rings of dried pasta, are Sicilian. You will not find them easily elsewhere. This tells you something about how regional Italian cooking truly is.

What makes this dish succeed is restraint in the ragù and patience in the oven. The meat sauce should coat, not drown. The pasta must be undercooked before baking, or it turns to mush. The cheese must melt into threads, not pools of grease. Simple does not mean easy. A properly executed anelletti al forno requires you to understand what each component needs and when it needs it.