Italian baked pasta - Pasta al forno

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Pasta al forno (baked pasta) reminds me of the my childhood in Italy, almost every Sunday, and on every family special celebration, my mother used to prepare this dish for the large family. I can still smell the pasta roasting in the oven, with melted mozzarella, tomato sauce and parmesan cheese....very tasty and very easy to prepare. What is really nice about the baked pasta is that you can cook it in advance and just make it warm again when you need it, just be carefull: it gets quickly dry....make sure that you use enough tomato sauce and liquid, heavy cream for instance.

Serves 6/8 persons

Ingredients:

500gr Italian short pasta (rigatoni for me...)

1 lt tomato passata (puree)

300gr ground beef

1 oinion

1 carrot

1 stalk of celeri

500gr fresh mushrooms or any other veggie (optional)

4tbs extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cap of  dry white wine

25cl of heavy cream (you can use soya cream if you like)

2 medium mozzarelas

100gr of freshly grated Parmesan

salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

1) Prepare the tomato and ground beef sauce:
- Finely cut the carot, celery and onion. Pour the olive oil in a sauce pan, when hot add the veggies mix. Cook till the onion get translucent, Add the beef mince.

- When well roasted add the white wine, let it evaporate completely.

- Add the tomato puree,  salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook for 45 to 60 minutes.
2) in the meanwhile finely chop the mozzarella and drain it in a colander for a few minutes.  
Bring to a boil a 4/5 liter of salted water. Cook the pasta very al dente (this means that you have to cook it half of the suggested time on the package) remember that the pasta will keep on cooking in the oven. Drain the pasta.
3) cook you favourite veggie, mushrooms for me.
4) Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl: pasta tomato/beef sauce, mushrooms, parmesan, mozzarella and heavy cream. Mix well with a large spoon. mix must be very wet.
5) Pour the mix a large oven pan. cook on 180C° till it gets roasted on the top. 30-35 minutes, depending on your oven. o avoid the top to get too dry you can cover it with aluminium foil fot the first 15 minutes of cooking, then you can take it off, pasta will be soft inside and chrusty on the top!

Your Sunday lunch is ready....Buon appetito!