Rigatoni au gratin with mozzarella 

"Life is a combination of magic and pasta." 

Federico Fellini

In Rimini, his birthplace, we are in the right place to find this combination... Let me tell you about the "azdore" term that in Romagna dialect represents those ladies of a certain age, with strong arms and character, equipped with a rolling pin and ready to spread pounds and pounds of flour together with eggs to create the dough of the magnificent tagliatelle, one of the typical Romagna dishes. 

In Romagna and more precisely in Rimini, there are restaurants and historic trattorias where you can taste the real tagliatelle prepared by azdore; are places where you can enjoy a meal that brings us back to family lunches, the simple and genuine ones, typical of our Romagna.

Often these trattorias are located in historic villages on the hills of Rimini, for example Santarcangelo di Romagna, where in some trattorias the recipe for tagliatelle is handed down from generation to generation. Lately I have enjoyed making easy and quick dishes and I always love a new and delicious pasta dish. 

Pasta doesn’t make you fat. How much pasta you eat makes you fat.

Giada De Laurentiis

The rigatoni au gratin with mortadella form a hearty and very tasty first course, perfect for children who will really like the flavor and the fun presentation with the tasty mortadella. 

For the realization of this dish it does not take many ingredients: just prepare the béchamel sauce, enrich it with grated cheese, a pinch of pepper (alternatively nutmeg) and mix it with boiled rigatoni, also adding mortadella cut.

Everything will be placed in a baking dish and baked for a few minutes until the appearance of the golden crust on the surface.

INGREDIENTS

Rigatoni 320 g

Mortadella in a single slice 150 g

Grana Padano to be grated 80 g

Pecorino Romano to be grated 20 g

Butter 20 g

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

FOR THE BÉCHAMEL SAUCE

Whole milk 500 Ml

Butter 50 g

Nutmeg to taste

Flour 40 g

PREPARATION

To make rigatoni au gratin with mortadella, prepare the béchamel sauce following our recipe. Put the butter in a saucepan, flavored with nutmeg melt the butter and add the sifted flour. Cooking for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk. You must obtain a compact and dry mixture. At this point, remove the saucepan from the heat and add the hot milk to the mixture, mixing everything with a wooden spoon. Then put the saucepan back on the heat, cook over low heat until the sauce has thickened. Transfer the béchamel sauce to a bowl, add the pepper, grated cheese and pecorino cheese and stir with a spatula to mix the sauce and let it cool. Cut the mortadella into slices 3 mm thick. Add the mortadella to the béchamel sauce and keep the sauce aside. Place a pot with salted water on the stove, bring to a boil and pour the rigatoni, cook the pasta al dente, then drain. Season with béchamel sauce and transfer it to a buttered baking dish, season the surface with a few flakes of butter and a tablespoon of grated cheese. Bake the pasta in a preheated static oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes and then gratin in grill mode for two minutes, the time to form a golden crust on the surface. When cooked, take the rigatoni out of the oven au gratin with mortadella stars, let them rest for 5 minutes and then serve.

ADVICE

I do not recommend freezing because they do not have a good yield once thawed. I always recommend making the béchamel sauce at home, but if you are not used to it and prefer to use the one found at the supermarket you could use about 500 gr!