Farfalle with Parsley, Lemon & Walnut Pesto

The Parsley Pesto

This is a fabulous pesto to make in winter when parsley is abundant rather than pretending its summer and we are all “Mediterraneo” in January. It also packs a massive iron, B vits (folates and all that) and antioxidant punch too so very good for veggies too. Here I have made a pasta dish but this green and potent elixir is delish spread on crostini (OK lets admit it “toast” and a dab oh yes just a dab of mayonnaise too) and I have also massaged it into chicken breasts to great effect (but dont quote me on that).

I first tasted this when a friend made a version in Aegean Turkey and although skeptical I was blown away by the honest robust flavours and how it made the pasta sing. It has its origins in all those wonderful sauces from Turkey and the Caucasus that use walnuts such as the Turkish “tarator” and Georgian “Satsivi” as well as the Italian “Pesto di Noce”. I include preserved lemon too as i like the lemony flavour without the bitterness. If you do not have preserved lemons then juice one lemon and also zest it. Romanian walnuts are legendary and I particularly enjoy making this with the new season nuts. The best are always bought at the market and roasting not only develops the flavour but eradicates unwanted visitors hiding in the crevices!

This is one of those recipes that is not so much a recipe as a suggestion of ingredients that when combined create something magical.

Ingredients

Zest and juice of 1 lemon or half a preserved lemon skin only
Quite a lot of garlic – 5- 6 cloves
150g walnuts
2 large bunches of flat leaf parsley
Good olive oil
Salt & pepper

How To

Pesto

Blitz all the pesto ingredients together and pour into a jar. To vary the consistency add more or less oil until it is dropping consistency ie will drop off a spoon rather than stick to it when turned upside down.

Farfalle with Pesto & Green Beans/ Courgettes/ Broccoli

Cook your pasta according to the instructions (I like the bows for this recipe but I cant really explain why). I particularly love this recipe with green beans – they have an affinity with the parsley and garlic and they remind me of a dish I ate many years ago in the South of France that was garlic with green beans dressesd with olive oil…well of course it was haricots verts with garlic but you get my drift. Chop and cook the veggies until done but not mushy (Brocoli and courgettes also work just great).

Drain the pasta

Stir the pesto through the pasta (I like quite a lot of pesto but start with one tablespoon per person and adjust if it looks less than you like)

Stir through the veggies gently until also lightly coated

Serve in plates sprinkled with fresh parmesan

Shelf Life

As long as you cover with a little oil to seal the pesto and prevent oxidation this will sit happily in the fridge for approx 1 month. However it is at its best, most flavourful and the vitamins at their most potent when made fresh.

Improvs

I have actually made this recipe with almonds…I have added breadcrumbs when nut rations were low and have used sunflower oil, rapeseed oil and corn oil in place of olive oil. I have not used walnut oil although that might work when you run out of walnuts! as I prefer a hint of the walnuts as opposed to walnuts being the predominant flavour.

Full of Beans – Walnut & Parsley Pesto & ‘Fasole Verde’ pasta, Salade Nicoise

Fasole Verde, Haricots Verts, String Beans or “French Beans”, whichever name is used, are sweet and delicious. I wasn’t ever very keen on harvesting or doing much at all in the heyday of my Mum’s happy hippy 1970s garden but I did like picking the “French Beans” and then helping cook them and eating them with some melted butter, or (my favorite) slightly warm with vinaigrette.

Fast forward to Piata Matache and the mountains of green and yellow beans on offer now. Green Beans as well as being delicious and versatile come with an array of health benefits so eating them chalks up a number of “good eating” brownie points. Lots of vitamin C and various B vitamins make the humble bean a strong immune system booster. The legume is high in fiber too and low in carbs and adorned with a vitamin E rich tahini or walnut sauce preferably with generous amounts of garlic involved packs a mean antioxidant punch, so chuck away the echinacea and tuck into beans instead!

First stop to enhance the bean experience this week was to make a “Walnut and Parsley Pesto”. I first encountered this simple but sensational pesto on the Turkish Aegean where the local olive oil is prized. Note: for a more walnutty flavor use walnut oil 1/3 to olive oil 2/3. Take blitzing equipment of choice and throw in one bulb of garlic ( yes one whole bulb of raw garlic and forget your neighbors and colleagues…think of your fast reducing cholesterol level or make them eat it too ) , two bunches of parsley, two full handfuls of walnuts, 100g-ish of parmesan or aged pecorino, a little chilli, the zest of half a lemon and enough olive oil to make it bind into a loose paste (probably more than would initially be thought), some salt and pepper to taste. Whizz it all up and hey presto, pesto fit for kings. This quantity makes two smallish jars. One jar will coat enough pasta for 4.

Walnut and Parsley Pesto & “Fasole” pasta

For four:

Boil 500g of topped and tailed green and yellow beans and leave to cool. Chop roughly.

Boil pasta according to instructions and personal taste

Add the Walnut and Parsley pesto to the cooked pasta and mix through. Add the beans gently and stir through

Serve with parmesan and a glass of something (or somebody) that copes with the garlic. Richard Fox recommends either the Prince Stirbey Tamaioasa Romaneasca Sec 2011 or the Davino Ceptura Rose 2011.

Salade Nicoise

Give this a local twist by using the yellow beans as well as the classic green ones and quail eggs (“oua de prepelita”) that are widely available for a touch of sophistication. Boil the beans until cooked (personally I don’t like them too crunchy as they verge on the raw and indigestible but soggy beans should be avoided at all costs too…keep an eye on them as they cook and keep tasting them for ‘done-ness’, boil the eggs and leave both to cool although the charm of this salad is eating it slightly warm and thus releasing all the volatile oils in olive oil for that olfactory hit. Mix the beans and hard boiled eggs with: Red onions, black olives, anchovies, artichoke hearts or boiled very new potatoes. Top with chunks of tuna and dress with either the best olive oil available and a little balsamic vinegar or a good vinaigrette.

Beans with Tahini Dressing & Walnuts

Another variation on the green bean/walnut and garlic theme, only this time with a Middle Eastern slant. First make a tahini based dressing. This is a Middle Eastern staple and can be varied depending on the salad or vegetable being dressed. I find it easiest to mix in a plastic bottle that acts like a cocktail shaker – a small plastic mineral water bottle is ideal. Drop into the bottle 2 generous tablespoons of tahini paste. Add smashed raw garlic (two cloves is sufficient but four would be more adventurous) and some lemon zest and/or honey. Mint can be added, although I prefer to dot fresh mint leaves through the salad. Add the juice of one lemon and 50ml water. Give a strong shake until the sauce has the consistency of runny honey.

Toast 100g walnuts in an oven at 180C for eight minutes until they release their aroma. Boil 500g of the green beans and let cool until “just warm”. Stir the walnuts through the beans. Add mint leaves to taste and drizzle the tahini dressing over the salad. Serve with warm flatbread.

Smoked Tomato Cream Pasta with bacon

Warning: this dish can engender serious feelings of satisfaction and well being.

Cream and tomatoes along with cream and roasted red peppers make dreamy, greedily good comfort food. Think cream of tomato soup, roast red pepper and smoked paprika cream, light and fluffy roast red pepper flan and (yes) cream of tomato ice cream with basil sauce. Now this particular recipe evolved from a surfeit of post ganache making “sweet cream”, a small container of roast tomato sauce in the freezer and a sad looking piece of smoked bacon lurking at the back of the fridge. It was also the day of yet more gruesome dental treatment. Creamy, carbo comfort food was never more deserved.

The disaster of my local supermarket no longer selling real parmesan but instead dubious plastic sachets of ready grated flavoured sawdust was mitigated by finding a piece of manchego (at least this hasn’t been processed into twice the price per kilo powder yet). I thought “Hola! – un poco excuse to play around with some of my precious smoked paprika”. The final serendipitous addition was the bright orange coloured children’s pasta bought by mistake some weeks previously. Of course I wanted to make home made pasta flavoured with carrot or pumpkin puree really I did.

The basic idea here is half thick cream and half a tomato sauce that is not over acidic (curdled cream is not a good thing). So do use a good sauce and do reduce it down first. If it does curdle dont panic – you can rescue it by adding a tablespoon of corn flour / corn starch mushed into milk and simmer it. It wont quite be the same but it will be edible.

Cook your pasta of choice and mix the sauce through. Here I fried the bacon pieces and sprinkled them on top with the cheese. I had some good basil lying around and thought I would throw some on. You can also add the cheese into the sauce but I like the contrast between the sauce and the cheese – up to you.

This is really one of those recipes where quantities do not matter overly (except the cream and tomato ratio). Here is what I think makes a four person serving with the pasta coated not swimming in sauce.

Ingredients

1 onion cut up finely
Smoked paprika (hot or sweet as you prefer)
2- 4 cloves Garlic, Minced
Approx 500ml of tomato sauce (reduce it down so its equal in volume to the cream)
300ml double cream (32%) or “smantana dulce”.
150-200g of smoked bacon/ham that has a bit of fat on it (if you want to impress then crisp up some prosciutto or “jambon crud uscat” but personally I think it’s a shame to destroy the creamy smooth texture which makes these cured hams so special)
Grated Parmesan or other mature cheese that you like or is available like manchego or pecorino
Fresh Basil
400g dry pasta
A glug of martini or if you can find it “noilly prat”

Gadgets & Gizmos

A frying pan or two. A saucepan to cook pasta in. No special kit required really.

How To

Fry the onion and garlic gently until transparent. Add 1 teaspoon of the smoked paprika and stir it gently. Add a slug of the martini until the alcohol has evaporated off. Add your tomato sauce, pepper and salt and if you think the sauce is a bit acidic add a spoon of sugar. Simmer gently until it is reduced almost half – approx 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile…cook pasta according to the instructions on the pack. The children’s carrot and squash only takes 6 minutes – an infantile attention span that I could identify with. Drain the pasta and watch it doesn’t glue itself together.

Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry gently until crispy. Allow enough to keep stealing bits of bacon out of the pan as they cook.

Add the cream to the reduced tomato sauce and when it bubbles through remove from the heat and stir in the pasta gently with a fork. Add cheese into the pasta or reserve and serve on top of the pasta. Sprinkle crispy bacon and torn basil leaves on top artistically. Smile a big smug “I so deserve this” smile.

Serve with a green salad or as I did an orange cherry tomato salad because I saw them in the market and threw all thoughts of colour, taste and texture balance to the wind. We drank supermarket brand beer that was very cold (its August) but a rustic red in winter would be very good too.