Nick DiGiovanni’s Three Levels of Pasta

Nick DiGiovanni has never been particularly interested in leaving well enough alone. His cooking tends to operate on a simple principle: If you can take something further, why wouldn’t you?

DiGiovanni has given Fine Dining Lovers three recipes at three very different levels of commitment. Level 1 is vodka pasta, the weeknight crowd-pleaser: rigatoni coated in tomato, cream, Parmesan, butter, and enough vodka to earn the name. It’s fast, forgiving, and on the table in about 35 minutes.

For his Level 2 carbonara, DiGiovanni makes fresh pasta with 00 flour and a gratuitous number of egg yolks, then tosses it with guanciale, Pecorino Romano, more yolks, and black pepper. You could stop there. but who needs restraint: add a confit egg yolk and shaved truffle.

Level 3 is lobster tortellini en brodo. You’re making pasta, steaming and breaking down a whole lobster, turning its shells into broth, mixing the meat with ricotta and lemon, and shaping individual tortellini. This is not your average Tuesday-night dinner.

There is a method to the escalation. The vodka pasta teaches you to bring a sauce together. Carbonara adds fresh pasta to the equation. By the time you reach the tortellini, you’re filling and shaping that pasta and making broth from the lobster shells.

You can quit whenever you want.

But there’s lobster at Level 3.