Italian cooking made easy: Spaghetti in foil

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   >> is "today" on nbc.

   >>> this morning in today's holiday kitchen if you want to impress your holiday guests, we've got an easy-to-prepare dish that's sure to be a crowd-pleaser. straight out of brooklyn , new york. you're going to make this special signature dish .

   >> it's one of our signature dishes.

   >> pasta in a bag in italian or in a purse. and we seal it up and you'll see as we get working on it.

   >> it's all about presentation. too.

   >> what do we do?

   >> this is a real simple menu. what we do is we add tablespoon of butter with the garlic.

   >> lots of garlic.

   >> lots of garlic. we let it all cook together for a good minute, minute and a half, until the garlic turns blonde. as you see it's turning right away. then we add our cream.

   >> heavy cream ?

   >> heavy cream .

   >> the good stuff, right?

   >> the good stuff. after the heavy cream , we touch it with our tomato, roughly about four to five ounces.

   >> and you use, are these fresh tomatoes here?

   >> fresh tomatoes, pureed.

   >> this is an easy recipe?

   >> yes. very simple. the best part of the recipe, it all comes together at the end, as we'll see.

   >> this gets the sauce going?

   >> now you probably have to cook for another good three minutes as it all comes together.

   >> what are you going to look for?

   >> look for it to trn a light pinkish color. we'll add a little more sauce so that happens. then we add a little salt. a little pepper. and then we look over here. our pasta is cooking. when it's all ready, we drain it so it's a little al dente, cook it for about six to seven minutes. we take it and put it into the sauce. right into the sauce.

   >> perfect. now i see you have some shrimp over here.

   >> now we take this, whole thing and that's what we do. we place the shrimp --

   >> i love how fast this is. it's --

   >> quick.

   >> yeah.

   >> a little baby shrimp, 31-35's. prosciutto. and then the famous cognac. we put the cognac over the pasta so it remains the full flavor. because it's just a -- a distinct way of doing it for this dish. so it doesn't evaporate.

   >> i love this cooking utensil .

   >> and then --

   >> you're going to spear the spaghetti.

   >> we wait for this to come together. this would have to cook another three minutes all-around. we add parmesan cheese at the end and we give it a good mix.

   >> perfect.

   >> and then we walk over to our plate that's over here.

   >> that's already set up.

   >> with the foil. we fold our pasta up. we put it into the foil.

   >> so that's where that giant fork comes in handy.

   >> yes.

   >> and we pour the sauce in.

   >> i got to see how this works.

   >> this is a great idea.

   >> so --

   >> is the idea then that you just save a lot of time cooking it this way?

   >> and then you bake it?

   >> we put in parsley and fold it up.

   >> and how long are you going to bake it for?

   >> a minute and a half in a two minutes in a preheated oven.

   >> we serve it like this in the bowl.

   >> and that's what it looks like.

   >> it looks great. thank you so much. can't wait to try it. thank you.

   >> thank you very much.

   >> our recipe is on the website, todayshow.com. still to come, some last-minute gift ideas with a personal touch.

   >>> and tori spelling 's other half, dean mdermott stopping by.

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