Enzo Carbone may be 52 now, but he still vividly recalls his childhood in Napoli, Italy and how important family meals were.
“I grew up in a very modest family with my parents, two brothers and sister and I was the black sheep of the family. Every time something happened, it was my fault!
“My father worked all day, and he was strict, so when he came home and it was time to eat, everyone had to be around the table because it was the only time that the whole family got together and we could have conversations about our day.
“And I would always get in trouble because I was outside playing with my friends and I was constantly late for dinner! But when I look back on it now, I think those were some of the best times of my life,” says Carbone, laughing.
Carbone is now the executive chef at Kuala Lumpur’s Hyatt Centric KL, where he supervises the proceedings at the hotel’s hugely popular Italian restaurant Il Forno. He left Italy when he was 16 and spent years working in many countries around the world, but home is still clearly where his heart is.
“All my memories of comfort food are based on the 16 years I spent growing up in Italy,” he confirms.
Carbone says pasta was an institution in his home when he was a child. He recalls that his much-loved 80-year-old mother Anna Barone was always somewhere in the back of the kitchen whipping up a pasta dish.
“In my hometown in Napoli, we had pasta 365 days a year for lunch and dinner. It was like our rice. So I would come back from school and there would be a plate of pasta for lunch and my mother made different pastas every day too,” says Carbone.
As a child and teenager, Carbone says his passion for cooking grew and consequently, he always endeavoured to help his mother in the kitchen.
“I was very curious – I was always trying to help in the kitchen or set up the table, which was my sister’s job. And I started going grocery shopping with my mother too,” he says.
Over time, Carbone acquired a wealth of knowledge about his mother’s rustic pasta recipes. One of the dishes he remembers very strongly is his mother’s pasta e patata e provola or pasta with potato and provola cheese, a soft stretched curd cheese.
The dish is indulgent in a nourishing, satiating way – softened potatoes in a thick, creamy sauce wound around the pasta.
“Everyone might say, ‘How can you eat pasta with potato?’ But this is a very nice home-cooked dish that is always served hot and eaten straight away. It’s one of my favourites,” he says.
Then there is his mother’s pasta e fagioli, which is essentially pasta with cannellini beans. This is a homey, rustic dish that is intensely nurturing and somehow tastes familiar, maybe because it bears that comforting home-cooked quality so many people long for.
“The technique is very simple. Anyone can make this at home because it’s essentially home-cooking,” says Carbone.
Carbone says one of the things he is happiest about is that his daughter went to live with his parents in Italy when she was eight and ended up learning all his mother’s recipes in the process.
“I was working in China then, and I sent my daughter to an international school in Italy, so she lived with my parents.
“At the time, she didn’t speak any Italian and my mother didn’t speak any English but my daughter has the same passion for cooking as I do. So she started writing all my mum’s recipes down while watching her cook. She still has it in a notebook now,” says Carbone, his eyes misting.
Carbone recently went back to Italy to celebrate his mother’s 80th birthday, a milestone moment that he says he will treasure forever because he was able to spend time cooking in the kitchen for his parents.
“My mum spent years cooking for me, so it was a very emotional moment for me because for one whole week, I got to cook for her. That was very meaningful to me,” he says.
Serves 4
- 1 large onion, chopped finely
- 1 celery stalk, chopped finely
- 1 carrot, chopped finely
- 100g fresh ripe tomatoes (or peeled tomatoes), chopped or crushed
- 500g potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
- water, as needed
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- 1 Parmesan rind (optional but highly recommended)
- 350 to 400g short pasta (ditalini, tubetti or mixed pasta)
- 100g provola cheese, diced
- 4 to 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- grated Parmesan or Pecorino (optional)
To make
- Cook onion, celery and carrots slowly in olive oil over medium-low heat until soft and fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes to the pot. Cook for 8–10 minutes until they break down into a light sauce.
- Drop potatoes into the pot and stir well. Add water until ingredients are just covered.
- Add salt and Parmesan rind (if using). Cook until potatoes are very soft and start to partially break down.
- Add pasta directly into the pot. Stir frequently. Add hot water little by little if needed. This is where it becomes creamy thanks to starch.
- When pasta is almost ready and mixture is thick: Turn off the heat and add diced provola cheese. Stir until it melts into a creamy, stringy texture.
- Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle black pepper. Top with grated cheese (optional) and serve hot.
