Pasta Tahdig

Karin, next time you make it omit the tomato sauce, and use four or five eggs, this will bind it, I submited the basic recipe below...

My southern Italian wife fries leftover pasta with parmesan until it's caramelized and crunchy. I'm not saying this dish is the reason I asked her to marry me, but it's one of the reasons I would have resorted to begging if she had hesitated to say yes.

I have to object to the "no Italian would admit it". To the contrary! This is actually a traditional Italian dish. More in the South probably, but I can tell you that I ate it many times at home as a kid and loved it. This is called "frittata di maccheroni" and is especially practical as food for a day at the beach or in the countryside. If you have a family meal you will cook more pasta than likely needed and with the leftovers you prepare the frittata for the next day.

Great recipe. While cooking ranges (especially electric) are known to have hot/cold spots, I doubt that continually rotating the pan every 5 mins is necessary. Traditionally, tahdig is made low-and-slow: you rely on medium-low heat, longer time (30-40 min) and the conductivity of the pan to distribute the heat without the risk of burning: it takes more time, but by using a timer/alarm you don't have to hover continually near the range and can multitask.

don't try this in a cast iron pan - tomatoes are acidic and the flavor will be ruined . never cook acidic food in cast iron.

"Though no Italian would admit it, pasta makes for a great tahdig" Except that this dish, in Italy, is known as "Frittata di Spaghetti". This recipe can be found in Marcella Hazan's cookbooks dating from 1978. She writes that the dish comes from Naples.

Yes macaroni pie, a traditional Neapolitan recipe, it's usually made with spaghetti pecorino Romano eggs and lots of fresh Cracked Pepper, I put pepperoni in it little extra kick...

All this flipping from pan to pan is unnecessary when you have a BROILER! And adding all the oil is, well, oily. Bind the pasta with a couple of beaten eggs, cook very slowly, then finish the top under the broiler (briefly). Side note: is anyone else as tired as I am of the ubiquitous non-word "crispy?" Isn't the real word "crisp" more, well, crisp?

Agree to the comments from the Italians! I grew up in an Italian-American family and my grandmother made this all the time from leftover pasta (dispelling the myth of just enough pasta - we always had PLENTY of leftovers on purpose). Sometimes my grandmother also made this from freshly cooked spaghetti. Her recipe included eggs, parsley, and if you were lucky chunks of fresh mozzarella cheese. It was well loved the crispy edges were always my favorite.

Upon reading this I flipped open my well & truly spattered "Jewish Holiday Cookbook" (by Joan Nathan), because it reminds me so much of her Jerusalem Kugel. I suspect Persian Jews must have brought tahdig to Jerusalem and then it morphed - but only slightly. I recommend both versions.

Giada de Laurentiis has a very similar recipe that she calls “Pizza di Spaghetti”. The main difference is that her recipe includes eggs. It it my daughter’s all-time favorite dish.

This is an old classic -- called by those of us of Italian-American heritage "spaghetti pie." To make a more complete meal, try adding a few beaten eggs in the mix with a little chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley for color.

This is very similar to the pasta frittata my mother would make with leftover macaroni. I make mine with spaghetti, mozzarella and parmigiana cheese plus the eggs. To flip I use a dinner plate.

i didn't think she was being myopic, I read this as self-deprecating and trying to be respectful of Italian traditions. Research maybe isn't called for with this type of personal essay --this was a story about her own family food memory (common to a lot of Iranians apparently).

And when you make 'spaghetti pie' with your leftover spaghetti, add a little cooked pancetta, parsley and a handful of locatelli romano to the eggs (a la Giada). I put the frittata under the broiler to brown the top. My kids like this better than the actual spaghetti for dinner. No reason for sauce.