Back in the Saddle

What’s cooking? Pasta with Lemon-Chile Pesto and Grated Egg

I’ll bet you think the Kitchen Goddess – having successfully arrived in Texas for the season – has been just hanging out on her porch with a cup of coffee and her feet up. Yes, it is tempting. The truth is that the excitement of being back in her Austin kitchen has had her cooking up a storm – being turned loose in a kitchen space that’s easily four times the size of her summer digs makes her almost giddy. Unfortunately, most of that cooking has been from recipes that have already appeared here, so at the end of all this activity, there was woefully little to write about.

Then it occurred to me that you might have missed some of the favorites I’ve served. They’re mostly dishes I love but haven’t made in a while. That’s one of the best things about a change of venue – it causes me to rethink my standard list of what’s-for-dinner. And maybe, like me, you could use a brain jostle, to move away from the same old same old. The mere fact of it being October has stirred in me longings for certain colors and flavors I haven’t thought about in, well, a year. So I have a nice new pasta for you, but first, here’s what else I’ve made recently. Have you tried these?

For my son and his golfing buddy, who came to visit, I made this Cumin Chicken with Squash, Fennel, and Grapes. Nothing that looks this good can be any easier, and you can assemble it early in the day and refrigerate it, then stick it in the oven 45 minutes before you want to serve. Add a green salad or a fruit salad or some roasted asparagus, and dinner is served.

For my book group’s pot-luck supper, I wanted something that would use up the giant crop of cherry tomatoes that greeted me on my return. This Roasted Tomato-Bacon-Goat-Cheese Galette was perfect, and devoured by the ladies. I timed it so that the “cooling-off” period took place on the ride to the meeting, so it was still warm when I arrived. All in, it took me 2 hours, but that includes the time the dough spent firming up in the fridge. And well worth it.

I treated my son and his golfing buddy to this marvelous Coconut Oat Pilaf, as a breakfast one day. The photo on that post looked really dreary, so I re-shot, just to show you what a champ (or chump) I am. And while I was at it, I tweaked the recipe again. The KG never stops thinking...

So now that I have you thoroughly off track, today’s new idea is an easy pasta with the most wonderfully fresh lemon flavor. Really, the combination of the butter and the lemon and the egg yolk makes it feel like some kind of yummy dessert, without the sugar. And the texture... OMG. The sauce is so velvety, it fairly slides down your throat.

Almost there. Just have to juice the lemons and grate the cheese. The lemon
zest did’t make the photo, but it’s ready.

Kitchen Goddess word of warning: There will be a lot of yelling and cursing and jumping around if you don’t get your mis en place with this recipe. You can do some things – like grate the egg yolks and the cheese – while the pasta is cooking. But the pasta will finish cooking in the sauce – yes, in the sauce – so you can’t be still grating lemon rind or squeezing lemons while the pasta is cooking, unless you are a lot faster at grating and squeezing than the KG. Life will be better if those things are done ahead.

Also, you may notice that the pasta I used was not rigatoni, but paccheri, which is larger and floppier than rigatoni. Pish-posh. The Kitchen Goddess uses what’s in the pantry, as long as it’s about the same shape. And she recently was served a magnificent pasta dish with paccheri in Italy, and a similar sauce, and was determined to revisit the experience.

Pasta with Lemon-Chile Pesto and Grated Egg

Adapted from Dawn Perry in Bon Appetit, March 2015.

Serves 4.

Ingredients

This is rigatoni.

12 ounces paccheri or other short pasta (like rigatoni, which is what the original recipe called for)
Kosher salt
4 yolks from hard-boiled large eggs, finely grated (box grater works best)
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
juice and finely grated zest of 2 lemons [Kitchen Goddess note: The original recipe calls for juice/zest of 1 Meyer lemon and 1 regular lemon. But the season for Meyer is short. KG once used 1 regular lemon and 1 sweet lime; another time used 2 regular lemons. Delicious both times. Food52.com suggests ½ lemon and ½ orange as substitute for Meyer.]
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes)
Freshly ground black pepper
½ ounce (about ½ cup) Pecorino Romano or Parmegiano-Reggiano, finely grated
Garnish: chopped parsley

Directions
In a large pot of boiling salted water (about the taste of the ocean), cook the pasta just long enough that it becomes very al dente. (It will still be opaque and fairly firm in the center). Drain the pasta, but reserve 2 cups of the pasta cooking water.

In a large skillet with at least 2-inch sides (or do as the KG did and use the pot you cooked the pasta in), melt 6 tablespoons of the butter over medium-high heat. (Leave the other 2 tablespoons of butter out to reach room temp.) Whisk in the lemon zest and juice and the Aleppo pepper (or pepper flakes) until well combined.

Add the pasta and 1 cup of the pasta water and stir with a wooden spoon (gentler on the pasta), tossing the pasta often and adding more cooking liquid as needed, until the pasta reaches al dente and the sauce thickens and coats it. This will take about 5 minutes. Season with salt and freshly (!) ground pepper to taste.

Remove the skillet or pot from the heat and stir the additional 2 tablespoons of butter into the pasta and sauce. Sprinkle on the grated cheese, and toss until the cheese melts. Serve the pasta with the grated egg yolks sprinkled on top, and a small amount of parsley.

Tip-toeing through My Magazines What’s cooking? Rigatoni with Abruzzi-Style Lamb Sauce

I spent a few days last week going through a recent issue of Food & Wine magazine. Okay, so it wasn’t really a recent issue. It was the March 2013 issue, and I was just getting around to it. I do this sort of thing with my subscription to The New Yorker, too – I figure the articles are interesting and informative and they’ll still be that way in another six months. Although occasionally I’m reminded of a New Yorker cartoon I saw several years ago that pictured a man in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, saying to the receptionist, “I see by your copy of Newsweek that Lyndon Johnson has decided not to run for reelection.”

In any case, in the issue in question, the magazine was celebrating their 35th anniversary, and reprinting many of their favorite recipes from over the years. The cynic in me – oh, yes, I have one – suspects they did the same exercise on their 30th anniversary, and the 25th, and..., and maybe we’ll see it again for the 40th. But I haven’t been a subscriber that long, so the recipes were all new to me, and by the time I’d waded through the whole issue, I found that I’d earmarked at least a dozen. I got so excited, I called friends who live nearby and invited them for dinner the next night. (One of the best things about retirement is that you don’t have to wait until you can get a babysitter or it’s not a school night to entertain.)

Something about all this cold weather makes me want to be in Italy. I’m pretty sure it gets cold there, but you know they have all that red wine and pasta... We had a brief taste of spring in Texas last week, but it’s all of a sudden feeling like winter here again. And more snow for New Jersey yesterday morning. (Can’t those people get a break, for goodness sake?)

So one of the dishes that called out to me was a pasta dish from Marcella Hazan, featuring lamb in the sauce. Now, when you read a recipe in a magazine, you never really know if it’s exactly as the celebrity chef meant it to be, or if the magazine staff tweaked it in ways that didn’t help. For whatever reason – and no disrespect to Marcella – this recipe didn’t blow any of us away. But it had a good premise, so I played with it and last night made it again, just for my husband and me. I added garlic – imagine a recipe with lamb that doesn’t have garlic! – and some bacon for extra flavor, a zucchini for color and vegetation, and I cut the pasta way back to give the sauce room to stand out. We pronounced it quite good, and easy as well. In fact, there’s not much to do other than a lot of chopping. I served it with ciabatta bread, sliced and toasted with garlic butter, and steamed asparagus drizzled with an Italian vinaigrette. Just the thing for a cold evening.

For you winos out there, we paired the dish with a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.

Rigatoni with Abruzzi-Style Lamb Sauce

Based on a recipe by Marcella Hazan published in Food & Wine Magazine, March 2013

Serves 4-6.

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup chopped onion
1 large clove garlic (about 2 teaspoons), minced
2 ounces thinly sliced pancetta, finely chopped
1 ounce bacon, cut in ¼-inch dice
1 heaping tablespoon chopped rosemary
8-10 ounces boneless lamb, cut into ½-inch dice
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
½ cup dry white wine
One 28-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, with their juices
1 small zucchini, cut in ½-inch dice
12 ounces rigatoni pasta
⅓ cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese or Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for serving

The best flavor comes when the pieces of lamb are no larger than 1/2 inch.

In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté the onion in the oil, stirring frequently, until the onion is a pale gold (about 4 minutes). Add the garlic and continue to stir frequently for another minute. Add the pancetta, bacon, and rosemary and cook, stirring occasionally, until the fat from the pancetta and the bacon is rendered (the meat will still be soft).

Raise the heat slightly, add the lamb, and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and stir. Add the wine and simmer about 10 minutes, until it evaporates. Add the tomatoes and the zucchini and simmer, stirring occasionally and reducing the heat if necessary, for about 20 minutes until the fat begins to separate from the sauce.

At the end of cooking, you'll see little pools of oil sitting atop the sauce, especially around the edge of the pan.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of rapidly boiling water (4 quarts) with 1½ tablespoons of salt. Stir often until the pasta is al dente.

Drain the pasta and immediately transfer it to a large warmed bowl. Toss with the lamb sauce and the ⅓ cup of grated cheese. Serve immediately, passing additional cheese at the table.

Mangia!