Ad Hoc Arugula and Pasta
Jun. 21st, 2010 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaShould you have beautiful seasonal arugula*, fresh and crisp and peppery, you should find some fresh, crisp, peppery use for it, like perhaps salad, and ignore me.
* - Or watercress, or mustard green, or sorrel, or other flavorful green.
However.
Should you forget about your beautiful seasonal arugula until it gets a little wilty—not bad, mind you, but a far cry from crisp—you might do this:
Boil up some pasta, whatever kind you like.
Slice some garlic, as much as looks good to you (for me, the vampire-proof woman, half a head), and soften with a bit of salt and a few good pinches of red pepper flakes in olive oil, over medium-high heat.
Add a glug of white wine and simmer until it reduces to a syrupy liquid, or, if you don't know what 'syrupy liquid' means, until there's still some liquid in the pot but barely.
Coarsely chop your somewhat sad-looking arugula or other assertive green, and drop in the liquid. Let cook until thoroughly wilted.
Throw in the cooked pasta. Add a knob of butter and a grating of hard cheese. (Parmesan and aged gouda both work well, but this is not a dish that is likely to be picky, so try whatever you have on hand.) Stir well.
If you have a bit of lemon, squeeze it over the top. If you don't, don't.
* - Or watercress, or mustard green, or sorrel, or other flavorful green.
However.
Should you forget about your beautiful seasonal arugula until it gets a little wilty—not bad, mind you, but a far cry from crisp—you might do this:
Boil up some pasta, whatever kind you like.
Slice some garlic, as much as looks good to you (for me, the vampire-proof woman, half a head), and soften with a bit of salt and a few good pinches of red pepper flakes in olive oil, over medium-high heat.
Add a glug of white wine and simmer until it reduces to a syrupy liquid, or, if you don't know what 'syrupy liquid' means, until there's still some liquid in the pot but barely.
Coarsely chop your somewhat sad-looking arugula or other assertive green, and drop in the liquid. Let cook until thoroughly wilted.
Throw in the cooked pasta. Add a knob of butter and a grating of hard cheese. (Parmesan and aged gouda both work well, but this is not a dish that is likely to be picky, so try whatever you have on hand.) Stir well.
If you have a bit of lemon, squeeze it over the top. If you don't, don't.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 06:27 am (UTC)It's one of my personal favorites, because in the local-farm-produce-box, it's one of the first tender greens I get in the spring, and it lasts well into early summer. (As opposed to kale and cabbage raab, which is available through most of the winter, but which is not a tender green.)
Which means that it's a pleasing herald of spring but something that will be around for long enough for it to be worth developing recipes around.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 09:20 am (UTC)