Easy-Peasy What’s cooking? Three-Pea Pasta with Herbs and Pancetta

There’s a funny smell in my garage. (I know that’s an unusual beginning for a food blog. The mind goes where the mind wants to go...) Probably a critter that got in by mistake and couldn’t find the way out. But ignorance is bliss, and that’s pretty much the approach my prince and I take when it comes to projects we’d just as soon not shoulder. For a couple of weeks now, we go out to the car and he says to me, “Do you still smell it? Because I don’t much.” And I say, “Yes, I definitely smell it. We have to investigate.” And then we get in the car and leave.

I have lots of friends who know how to focus on such issues. When they see a problem, they get right down to it. We are not in that camp, unless the problem is something like changing a light bulb, and even then I can think of at least one bulb that’s been out for a while. If it’s golf- or wine- or music-related, he’ll gladly tackle it. And if it’s food- or cooking-related, I’m on it like white on rice. So it’s not that we’re lazy. At least, I hope it’s not. We just neither of us want to charge into an experience that’s guaranteed to be unpleasant.

To my mate’s credit, if we knew where the critter was – like in the middle of the driveway – he’d find a shovel and some newspaper and get rid of the thing. But the idea of poking around in the recesses of the garage, and hoping that nothing jumps out, ... even just that moment of discovery... Not our thing.

What we need is an assistant. Some go-getter type. Well organized. A person of action. We’ve got both Siri and Alexa, and neither of them can actually do a damn thing. I want to say, “Alexa, change the lightbulb in my bathroom.” “Siri, find the source of that smell in the garage.” But no, they just sit there. We can do that much.

For certain activities, we’ve found that if we hang out with the right friends, we don’t have to be action people. We can take advantage of their organizational skills. For social activities, a couple of our friends often come up with fun dinner-type experiences. For travel, others are amazingly good at planning golf or sightseeing trips. Last fall, when a group of us went to Sicily, the house we stayed in and the sites we visited were all figured out by others on the trip. We believe every group needs a few Type B personalities, and that is our contribution. We pack our bags and go where we’re told. No whining, no complaining, no suggesting.

But so far, none of our friends has stepped forward to find the dead critter in the garage. If you know anyone who’d consider taking that on, please tell them to give me a call. I’ll make dinner.

* * *

Speaking of which, I made the loveliest pasta the other night. The grocery stores are finally offering real spring veggies, like snow peas and sugar snap peas and English peas, though I must confess that I haven’t actually found any English peas. In making this dish, I substituted frozen peas, and thought neither the taste nor the texture suffered.

The other great thing about this recipe is the use of herbs. While I took the sage and parsley and mint from my kitchen garden, they’re all available in great quantity at the stores now. The heady aroma of all those herbs, combined with the nice crunch of the pea pods, made this dish a real celebration of spring. The ricotta salata – ricotta cheese that has been pressed, dried, and salted, and which tastes like a very mild feta cheese – provides a nice, lightly tart accent, but the dish is also terrific without it if you’re not into cheese.

The recipe comes from Melissa Clark of The New York Times, and Ms. Clark developed it to use with farro pasta. But the Kitchen Goddess is not into scouring the planet for such specialized ingredients, so she used whole wheat fusilli and was very satisfied. (I will say that the color of the whole wheat pasta works really well with the peas.) I also added the mushrooms, just because it seemed like a good idea – and it was! I served it to friends – who were effusive with their praise – as one of my “guinea pig” dinners, with French bread and my favorite citrus salad, orange slices with black olive tapenade and fennel seeds. A terrific light meal that takes almost no time to prepare. And you’ll love the leftovers. Spring into it!

Kitchen Goddess notes: (1) Pancetta is just Italian bacon, made from pork belly, salt cured and jazzed up with black pepper and other spices. It’s sometimes eaten raw, but not in this dish. It comes in a spiral shape, which makes it a little funky to slice; but it’s really flavorful, so you should try some. Get it at the deli counter.

(2) Almost all the work in this recipe comes from trimming the little ends off the snow peas and the strings and tips off the sugar snap peas, which is a bit tedious but certainly not hard. And because the peas should be eaten firm-tender, the sauce takes almost no time to cook. So if you get your mise en place – peas trimmed, pancetta chopped, scallions sliced, herbs shredded, lemon zested, etc. – you can start the pasta before you even put the olive oil into the skillet. By the time the pasta is al dente, the rest of the dish will be ready to go.

Three-Pea Pasta with Herbs and Pancetta

Adapted from Melissa Clark in The New York Times.

Serves 6.

Ingredients
1 pound whole wheat fusilli or other pasta
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces pancetta (or bacon), 2-3 thick slices, cut crosswise into strips about ⅜-inch wide
3 tablespoons butter at room temperature, separated
4 ounces fresh morel mushrooms (or crimini mushrooms), sliced
1½ cups thinly sliced scallions (white and light green parts), about 2 trimmed bunches
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper, or ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
2½  tablespoons fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped
1½ cups frozen peas (not thawed) or shelled English peas
8 ounces sugar snap peas, strings removed and ends trimmed
6 ounces snow peas, ends trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
zest of 1 lemon (about 1 teaspoon)
2 heaping tablespoons roughly chopped parsley
2 heaping tablespoons roughly chopped mint
2 ounces (about ¼ cup) ricotta salata or mild feta cheese, crumbled

Directions
In a large pot of well salted water, cook the pasta until it is just al dente. Before you drain the pasta, reserve 2 cups of the pasta water for use with the sauce.

While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil on medium-high in a large skillet, and add the pancetta. Cook, stirring, for 5-6 minutes, until it starts crisping and turning brown. Use a slotted spoon to remove it to a plate or bowl, but leave the skillet on medium-high heat.

Add 1 tablespoon of butter, and when it sizzles, add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, for 4-5 minutes. Add the scallions, Aleppo pepper, and sage to the skillet and stir well for about a minute, to distribute the oil on the scallions. Stir in the peas (all three kinds), and season well with salt and pepper. Cook the vegetables, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until the peas (all three kinds) are barely tender.

Stir the drained pasta into the pan, along with about a cup of the reserved pasta water. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Gently toss the pasta and the veggies as they cook, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Continue to simmer the mixture until the pasta has reached a just-done stage and the veggies are still only fork-tender, adding more pasta water as needed. (This is a personal preference thing: If all the liquid has been absorbed and it seems like the pasta is still too al dente for your taste, use that extra cup of pasta water.)

Turn off the heat, and add the butter and the reserved pancetta. In a small bowl, stir together the lemon zest, parsley, and mint until well combined. Toss the mixture gently with the pasta, and season again with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the pasta in large shallow bowls. Sprinkle the ricotta salata on top.

Mangia!

Salad Days Are Here Again What’s cooking? Spring Veggie Salad with Mint Vinaigrette

I started thinking about this post by looking up the term “salad days” in Wikipedia. Wouldn’t you know it, that rascal Will Shakespeare coined the phrase in 1606, when he used it in Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra laments her dalliances with Caesar and refers to “My salad days, When I was green in judgment...”

I remember my own salad days – crazy, fun days living and working and playing in Manhattan, with more than a few dalliances – and I marvel now that I made it through those days alive. Talk about green... And yet salad wasn’t a food I much liked. I knew nothing about making salad dressing, or the huge range of foods that can go into a good salad.

These days, I think more favorably of salads. They’re the Jackson Pollocks of the kitchen – free-form collections of wildly and widely ranging ingredients, from fruits and veggies to nuts and proteins and grains, tossed and turned with dressings that cover the sweet/savory waterfront. Europeans tend to serve salads after the main course, as a sort of refreshing break between the entrée and the cheese course or dessert. Most American restaurants serve it at the beginning of the meal, and frankly, I don’t think it matters. My dinner parties tend to be buffet-style, so the salad is just part of the buffet.

The best salads are seasonal, taking advantage of the textures and flavors available now. I think that’s what I like most about the salad I made last weekend – featuring asparagus, snow peas, and English peas, on a bed of mâche and sunflower sprouts – and I dressed it with a vinaigrette made with mint from my garden. The final touch is a sprinkling of fresh dill.

I love wandering farther afield than your basic salad greens – although a “spring mix” of baby greens will work as well in this salad. Mostly, I hate the tedium of tearing lettuce, so I’m thrilled when there’s a good alternative that doesn’t require tearing. Mâche (rhymes with gosh) is a soft-textured lettuce, also known as lamb’s lettuce or corn salad, that’s increasingly easy to find these days. Deep green in color and sold in packages of rosettes, the leaves have a shape that reminds me of cartoon speech bubbles. It has a mild, nutty flavor, and, according to Wikipedia, three times as much vitamin C as lettuce, in addition to beta-carotene, Vitamin B6, iron, and potassium. The sunflower sprouts – also available almost everywhere these days – are similarly packed with good stuff: high in fiber, protein, essential fatty acids, vitamins A, B complex, C, D and E. So eat your salad – it really is good for you!



Kitchen Goddess note: What I like most about this salad is the effect of the shaved asparagus and the julienned snow peas. You wouldn’t think these cuts would inprove the taste, but they do. I don’t have an actual scientific explanation, but in both instances, you’re exposing more of the sweet inner flesh of the veggie and less of the tough outer skin, so what your taste buds experience is more of the natural sugar of the plant. Also, more of the vegetable gets exposed to the dressing, and that may add to the effect. At least, that’s my analysis. (The mathematician in me wants to get into a discussion of surface area ratios, but I’ll spare you that.) So while you might think these cuts were just some display of Kitchen Goddess obsessiveness, there’s a real difference in the taste of the salad. And it does add to the look. 

By the way, the season for English peas is painfully short, so you need to try this salad now. While you’re at it, buy some extras and make Cold Spring Pea Soup.

Tips from a Professional

In his wonderful cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home, Thomas Keller – owner and chef of The French Laundry (Napa Valley) and Per Se (NYC) – offers three steps to help you dress your salad like the pros.

➊ First, drizzle the dressing around the inside of the salad bowl – not on top of the greens – so that the greens pick it up evenly as you toss them. Don’t overdress the salad – you want the greens just lightly coated. Add dressing sparingly, then offer guests a small pitcher of dressing on the side.

➋ The next step is to add salt and pepper, then toss again to distribute the seasoning.

➌ Lastly, sprinkle any herbs you want on top of the greens. Except for chives, which must be sliced, tear the herbs instead of cutting them, so you don’t leave their flavors on the cutting board.

This is a great salad for a dinner party, as you can prepare the snow peas, English peas, and asparagus well before serving and refrigerate them separately in zip-lock baggies so they stay fresh, then toss them together at the last moment. The mâche and sprouts come ready to use. You can make the Mint Vinaigrette the day before (it will last a week or so, but the color of the mint will fade) – I think you will love the light, fresh flavor it adds to the salad.

The quantities below should serve four, unless, like me, you become so obsessed that you sit down and eat the whole thing for lunch. And of course, the idea of counting out 36 peas is a bit absurd. I gave you these quantities as guidelines – feel free to use a pea more or less.

Spring Veggie Salad

Serves 4.

2-3 ounces mâche (or a mix of baby greens)
2-3 ounces sunflower sprouts
12 snow peas, julienned (sliced thinly)
4 medium-thick asparagus, shaved
36 English peas, uncooked
Mint Vinaigrette (recipe below)
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon fresh dill leaves

Toss together the mâche and sprouts, then sprinkle them with the snow peas, asparagus, and English peas. Dress with Mint Vinaigrette (recipe below), add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle on fresh dill before serving.

Mint Vinaigrette

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1½ teaspoons honey
½ teaspoon minced shallot
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup grapeseed oil or good olive oil
10 fresh mint leaves, stems removed

At least an hour before serving, combine the lemon juice, honey, shallot, mustard and salt in a blender and blend until smooth (15-20 seconds). While the machine is running, add the oil in a slow stream and continue blending until the mixture emulsifies (comes together), about a minute.

Surviving Summer in a Small Kitchen What’s cooking? Roasted Garlic and Honey-Lemon Salad Dressing

As much as I love cooking, I still don’t want to spend all my time in the kitchen. Especially in the summer when I’m consigned to an area that’s about 9 feet by 4 feet of walking around space. I know, it’s a perfectly good size for an apartment kitchen; it’s just really small compared to the kitchens I’ve been cooking in for the last 33 years.

So when I lose my mind at the farmers’ market, as I did last Sunday – okay, most Sundays – I have to find ways to clear fridge space as well as work space, and minimize the time I spend on meals for the rest of the week.

❶ I start with the beets. A bunch of beets with its leafy tops takes up a ridiculous amount of space in the fridge. Turn the oven on to 400º. Cut the stems off the beets and stick them (the stems) in a couple of inches of water in the sink. Put the beets themselves into a covered casserole dish (no need to wash them) and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

When they’re done, let the beets cool until you can handle them, then gently rub the skins off with your fingers. (The Kitchen Goddess uses rubber gloves because God forbid she should get beet juice under her nails.) Store them in the fridge for up to 3-4 days until you find time to make a beet salad.

Beets -- roasted, peeled, ready for whatever

❷ As long as I’ve got the oven on, I grab a head of garlic – which you can do even if you don’t buy beets – for roasting. Roasted garlic is so fabulous that the Kitchen Goddess wonders what she ever did before she discovered it. It can take the place of chopped garlic in a salad dressing or a pasta dish or to enhance the flavor in a dish you might not ordinarily add it to. It has none of that pungency nor the burn of raw garlic, and baking it ahead of use brings out its sweet and savory characteristics. I recently experimented with it in a mushroom risotto, which disappeared like *poof!* when I served it to my family. It’s excellent in mashed potatoes and even on its own as a spread with bruschetta.

For the Roasted Garlic:

Garlic before roasting

■ Remove as much of the papery skin as you can – or feel like doing – without destroying the bulb.
■ Slice enough of the top off the head to expose most of the individual cloves. The Kitchen Goddess goes a little overboard here and trims the tops off even the cloves lower down on the side of the head; you should go as far as you want.
■ Set the bulb in an ovenproof dish. You may want to trim the base of the bulb just enough to let it sit flat.
■ Drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over the garlic, and sprinkle on a pinch of kosher salt.

Garlic after roasting

■ Cover the dish and bake in a 400º oven for 40-45 minutes.
■ If you’re not planning to use it immediately, store the roasted garlic in an airtight container in the fridge, where it will keep for a couple of weeks.

❸ Back to the beet greens. Once they’ve soaked the dirt off, spin them dry and lay them between layers of paper towels. Stack the layers and maneuver the lot into a gallon-size zip-lock bag. Squeeze as much air out of the bag as you can and store in the refrigerator until ready for cooking.

❹ Now for those giant heads of lettuce. Follow the same procedure as for the beet greens (or turnip greens or collards, etc.): wash/soak them in a sinkful of cold water to get the dirt off, spin them dry, then layer them with paper towels and – gently – jam the lot into another zip-lock bag. Once you’ve squeezed the air out, they’re like those vacuum-sealed bags you can buy to store your blankets or whatever – they consume a fraction of the space for a head of lettuce, and they don’t even have to be in a vegetable drawer.

The best part about dealing with the lettuce like this is that you can make a salad at a moment’s notice. Moreover, the lettuce stays fresh this way for about TWO WEEKS (you heard me), as long as you remember to squeeze the air out again each time you remove some.

Two heads of lettuce, fresh from the farmers' market.

Now that you’re completely organized, you can make a salad. Summer salads are the best because of the wealth of fresh ingredients available. My favorites start with a bowlful of torn lettuce leaves, and add at least 2 – or as many as you like – of the following (in no particular order):

Avocado (cubed or sliced)
Berries: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries
Peas: sugar snap peas, snow peas, or English peas
Corn: no cooking needed, just cut it right off the cob
Cucumber (cubed or sliced)
Peach (½-inch dice)
Radishes, thinly sliced

Then add your favorite not-too-complex dressing, which might even be a bottled dressing. I will confess here to a fondness for Newman’s Own Caesar Dressing. Here’s a great one, from one of my previous posts, with the addition of one of those roasted garlic cloves:

Honey-Lemon Salad Dressing

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon salt
1 clove roasted garlic (optional)
½ cup olive oil
fresh ground pepper

Whisk together the honey, lemon juice, and salt. Mash the garlic into it. Add the olive oil in a stream, whisking constantly as you pour. Add the pepper and adjust the seasoning to taste.

Happy summer!