Welcome to El Italiano JK

When Niely and I were younger, we made a "Restaurant" called El Italiano JK. It was one of those mystery dinner types of deals where you order, but you have no idea what you just ordered. We had a lot of fun and aside from the mystery part, we enjoyed a couple italian-ish dishes this week.

Monday, on the spur of the moment we decided to make dinner together. We made Angel hair pasta with a fresh homemade pesto sauce, stirfry mushrooms and steamed a nice variety of frozen stirfry vegetables. We were hungry and ate the vegies and mushrooms before we remembered to take a piture, but you can see the pasta. It doesn't look like much, but in real life the pesto sauce is a bright leaf green and smells delectable.


Linguine al pesto (Linguine with Basil Sauce)
From: The Pasta Book, Recipes in the Italian Tradition, by Julia della Croce
serves 4

Ingredients:

• 4 cloves garlic, cut into pieces
• 2 cups solidly packed fresh basil leaves (I didn't have quite this much)
• generous 1/2 tsp salt
• a twist or two of freshly milled black pepper
• 1/2 cup virgin olive oil (I used EVOO)
• 1/3 cup very lightly toasted pine nuts (we couldn't find some so we left this out, you could use walnuts instead)
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano
  
• scant 1/4 cup freshly grated Romano or pecorino cheese (we didn't use this)
• 2 Tbs sweet (unsalted) butter, softend to room temperature
• 1 1/2 Tbs salt, for cooking pasta
• 1 lb linguine or spaghetti (we used angel hair, but I think I would use linguine next time)

Directions:

1. Combine garlic, basil, 1/2 tsp salt, pepper, oil, and pine nuts in a food processor and blend to a smooth puree, stopping machine once or twice to scrape sides of container with a rubber spatula so that all ingredients are equally ground.
2. Add grated cheeses and butter and process for about 15 seconds. Scrape sides again and process for another few seconds. Do not overgrind, or pesto will have very little texture.
3. Bring 4-5 quartz water to a rapid boil and add the 1 1/2 Tbs salt and past. Stir immediately, and continure to stir frequently to prevent strands from sticking together.
4. After cooking as long as package directions indicate, drain, reserving some of the water. Do not overdrain; pasta should still be quite moist and dripping a little in order to combine properly with pesto. Stir 1 tablesppon of the hot water from drained pasta into pesto. Transfer past to a warm bowl, then toss with pesto. Serve immediately.

Keeping and freezing pesto: Pesto base will keep in the refrigerator for several months in a sealed glass jar. I have found teh best way of preventing a dark layer from formin gon the top is to press a layer of plastic wrap onto the surface of the pesto base. this is far more effective than the traditional method of pouring olive oil on the surface. You can freeze the pesto base in the same way.

Notes about Pesto: Pesto sauce originated in Genoa, in the Liguria region. It is one of the oldest Italian dishes known, said to have come about from the combined influence of the Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines. The Italians insist that it should be served with trenette, a narrow but thick homemade egg noodle, because the unctious character of the sauce is too overwhelming for more delicate egg noodles. But pesto also works well with linguine, spaghetti, or even the larger bucatini.

Authentic pesto can be made only with fresh basil leaves, but there are many variations of it. It can be made with pine nuts or walnuts, with or without butter, and with the addition of a small amount of parsley to quiet its natural sweetness. Some Italians add both parmigiano and pecorino cheeses, whereas other Italians, the Romans in particular, are horrified at the mere suggestion of intorducing pecorino to pesto. Pecorino cheese is sharper and mroe salty than parmigiano. It would be a mistake to use it alone. Ablend is suggested for this dish. If you will not be using the pesto immediately, leave out the cheeses, salt and butter. Beat them in just before using the pesto.

Mushrooms
To cook the mushrooms, we took about 8 fresh mushrooms and cooked them in a non-stick frying pan at medium-high heat with a tiny bit of butter (about 1/2 Tbs) and some soy sauce. Cook until softer but still a little crisp.

Thursday afternoon M joined us for lunch. Jeniel made focaccia bread (recipe in last post) and we had sandwiches of mozzarel and prociutto. It was delicious served with a fresh spinach and berry salad with poppyseed dressing. Mmmm! so good.

The happy eaters

Mmm! What a spread.