Food for Thought: Walnut Pasta Squared

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Walnut Pasta Squared

What follows are two recipes for pasta with walnuts. The first has an olive-oil based sauce, the second sauce is cream-based. I actually made a variation on these recipes today by using Farfalle pasta with the walnut-garlic-rosemary-cream-based sauce and omitting cheese altogether.

Walnut Farfalle

I happen to like bow-tie pasta, also known as Farfalle. You don't have to use Farfalle but it's best to use some form of short pasta for this recipe.

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup of walnuts, very finely chopped or whizzed in a blender or pounded with a mortar and pestle
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons marjoram, chopped
- 3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
- 1/2 cup pecorino Romano, grated
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 pound of short pasta

Instructions:
Start by heating a large pot of salted water. In the meantime, toast the walnuts in a 350F degree oven until they are golden, 8-10 minutes. Place the garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle, and pound everything to a fine paste. Add the walnuts to the mortar and pestle and pound, again into a paste. Alternately, you can do this in a food processor or just chop everything finely by hand as I did. What's a little tendinitis, here and there.

Transfer the nut mixture to a bowl. Stir in the olive oil, then add most of the herbs. Stir in the pecorino, taste, and adjust the seasoning. Essentially, you have made a pesto with walnuts.

Cook the pasta al dente. Drain and reserve a big cup of the pasta water. Toss the walnut pesto with the pasta, and thin out the sauce with the reserved water as necessary. Serves 6.

Walnut Linguine

This is another delicious recipe that uses toasted walnuts with pasta. I had it tucked away in my recipe binder. I actually prefer it to the one posted above. Could it be the cream?

Ingredients:
- about 1 cup of finely chopped toasted walnuts
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
- 1 and 1/2 cups of heavy cream (35% B.F.)
- 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary leaves
- 1 lb of linguine (450 gm)
- 1/4 cup of finely grated Parmesan
- salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Sauté garlic in the butter, then add the nuts, cream and rosemary over a medium low heat until the sauce is slightly thickened. In the meantime, boil a large pot of salted water and cook the pasta. Drain the pasta and combine with the cream sauce. Add the Parmesan cheese and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

'To Cut the Mustard'

Meaning: To succeed; to come up to expectations.

Origin: Why cutting mustard was chosen as an example of high quality is unclear. Some possibilities allude to the literal difficulty of cutting mustard;for example: - Mustard seed, which is hard to cut with a knife on account of being small and shiny. - Mustard plants, which are tough and stringy and grow densely. - Culinary mustard, which is cut (diluted) and made more palatable by the addition of vinegar. - Dried mustard paste, which was reputedly used to coat meat and then dried to form a crust.

The love of olive oil...

I finally figured it out...why I love olive oil so much. It was the television programming I was exposed to as a child. See the following description, from the online Encylclopedia Britanica, of a character I admired. I lusted after the large boxes of chocolates she would consume in one sitting.

Tall, gangly, big-footed Olive Oyl, whose black hair was almost always tied back in a bun, first co-starred with her brother, Castor Oyl, in 1919 in the newspaper comic strip Thimble Theatre. For the strip’s first 10 years, she was the girlfriend of Castor’s layabout pal, Ham Gravy, and her jealousy over his wandering eye fueled many comedic episodes. However, soon after the introduction of Popeye in 1929, Ham was written out of the strip as Olive found true love with the salty sailor. In this coupling, she was the more fickle character, as from time to time she became drawn to suitors with more education and refinement than the scrappy, wisecracking Popeye, though he always won her back. Popeye rescued Olive Oyl hundreds of times from the nefarious bully Bluto.

A Funky Review of a Funky Cookbook by a Funky Girl

“Bite me speaks to more than your stomach,” reads an excerpt on one of the first pages of the newly released cookbook, Bite me, by sassy sisters Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat. From the tongue in cheek, retro photographs that grace many of the pages to the aptly chosen, often perfectly crude quotations; Bite me is a cookbook that also speaks to your sense of humour and playfulness.
The book is decidedly un-pretentious, which is exactly what the sisters had in mind when creating the book, and exactly what appeals to me as a twenty something with not much experience in the kitchen. At the book’s launch on October 6th at an Indigo location in Toronto, Julie was the first to boast that many of the props in the self-published book came from the dollar store. The price- perfect. The look- genius. The props convey just the right amount of kitsch and comedy.
Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo and famous as Heather of ‘Heather’s Picks’ obviously saw the same genius in these first time authors. The book is now the first cookbook to ever be chosen as a ‘Heather’s Pick’ at Chapters and Indigo stores nationwide.
I personally know Julie Albert, as I tutor her adorable, charming son Benjy, here in Toronto, Ontario. Julie is most often seen looking flawless, but approachable- laid back in jeans or yoga pants, shuffling her kids from one activity to another. She is exactly the involved Mom who wants delicious, easy, home cooking with a twist, to feed to her family. That was the goal for the sisters- no mushroom foam, no truffle scented this or that. Just fun, easy variations on your favourites- using simple ingredients with a dash of wit, and some of Lisa and Julie’s own kitchen secrets. Oh- and a man with his head stuffed down a woman’s shirt. You have to buy the book to take a look at that last one.
I am buying the book for all the cooks in my family this Christmas. Even for a cook with many books, this one is a standout- almost more coffee table material than shelved with other cookery bibles.
If you need a giggle- go buy it. If you need a recipe for pecan crusted lime chicken- buy it. To the self-professedly “not so sweet, tiny-bit salty” sisters- great job. I forkin’ love it.

Jessie Bass-West

Link to Bite me http://www.bitemecookbook.com/

Pages

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Walnut Pasta Squared

Walnut Farfalle

Walnut Linguine