Deep Dish Spaghetti Pie

 

I came across a recipe for Spaghetti Pie in the Washington Post. While I found the bones of the recipe to be excellent, I knew I would have to modify it to bring it more in line with my personal preferences. I loved the idea of using spaghetti as the pie crust, but the recipe called for just 4 ounces of spaghetti. I love spaghetti, so a measly 4 ounces violated my core principal of "Go Big or Go Home".

Second, the meat sauce was more on the mild side (and way too little of it to satisfy my appetite). So I amped up the flavor profile and increased the amount of meat in the sauce. Finally, it called for using cottage cheese as one of the layers...which brought back all of the horrors of my mother's culinary skills which were inflicted upon me in my youth. She used to serve my family cottage cheese on an iceberg lettuce leaf and called it salad. Suffice it to say that not a single drop of cottage cheese has passed my lips in the last 60 years.

The final modification I made was the cooking vessel. The Washington Post recipe called for using a regular pie tin. But given that I had substantially up the quantity of ingredients and was aiming for  a "deep dish" pie, I switched to a cheesecake pan. I love these pans as they are non-stick and you can just unbuckle the sidewalls to slice your pie. If you are interested in looking at and researching these pans, go to Amazon and type these words into their search field: Cheesecake Springform Pan (they run around $15.)

Now if you don't want to do a deep dish and want to use a regular pie tin, you can follow the recipe but I would cut all of the ingredients in half. And it is important to rest the pie for 10 minutes after you take it out of the oven. This allows the pie to firm up and it will give you perfect slices that look just like the photo at the top of the page.

INGREDIENTS

8 ounces dried spaghetti

2 tablespoons butter

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

2 tablespoons olive oil

16 ounces hot Italian sausage, removed from casings

 6 ounces sliced fresh button mushrooms

1 small onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

One, 14.5 ounce can of tomato sauce

One, 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes, drained

2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350º. Spray bottom of cheesecake pan with cooking oil.
2. Bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to a boil over high heat. Cook the spaghetti according to package directions until al dente, then drain. Return the spaghetti to the pot and stir in the butter until melted. Stir in the eggs and parmesan cheese until combined. Place mixture in bottom of cheesecake pan and press it into the bottom and up the sides of the plate, forming a crust. Spread 1 cup of mozzarella over the top of the spaghetti.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet until it shimmers. Add the sausage, mushrooms, onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until the meat is broken up and browned and the onion and mushrooms are tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, Italian seasoning and salt. Heat and stir until warm, about 5 minutes. Add the mixture to the cheesecake pan on top of the mozzarella and spaghetti. Then spread the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella on top of the meat mixture.

4. Bake for 30 minutes. For neater slices, allow the pie to rest for 10 minutes before cutting into six wedges. Then serve.

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   Wine pairing: Chianti Classico