Thursday, June 28, 2007







Two Tasty Pastas with Fresh Peas

Fresh peas are becoming such a problem. My farmer growers don't like to grow them-no one wants to put the work of shelling them into their routine. These peas came from a grower already shelled. Although they were fresh, they were disappointing to me because they were a bit mature and starchy-not the tiny sweet orbs I wanted-nonetheless they were still tasty mixed with some additional ingredients and noodles.

Very simple and delicious. The first is linguini tossed with shrimp and grilled salmon. The sauce was Vodka Tomato cream-we reduced cream, added some of our red sauce and 1/4 cup vodka and cooked it briefly before tossing in the shrimp and salmon to cook in the sauce, then we added the already cooked peas and noodles. We finished the dish with fresh dill.

The second is from the cookbook author Marcella Hazan's "Classic Italian Cooking". It is titled Paglia e Fieno. The translation means "hay and straw"-you use both egg and spinach noodles, so it whimsically looks like a mixture of hay and straw. This time the noodles are sauced with reduced cream, wine, wild mushrooms, peas, and parmesan. Before serving I topped the noodles with some thinly sliced Proscuitto, which makes it essentially noodles with ham and peas-the Italian sounds exotic, while the American sounds mundane-in any case, to paraphrase (badly) Shakespeare "a pasta by any other name would taste just as sweet"-so call it what ever you want.

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