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THE REAL PASTA PRIMAVERA Pasta Primavera has become the name for any bright assortment of neatly cut up vegetables, steamed or sautéed and tossed with noodles. Often the "springtime pasta" will include sweet red or yellow bell peppers, summer squash, and even tomatoes. Very tasty, but most of us won't encounter a ripe bell pepper or a good local tomato until well into the summer. A real pasta primavera would look quite different, I thought as I made my way through the farmers' market last week, buying lilac and asparagus. I wanted to take home all the vegetables that define spring, the ones we wait for eagerly and that don't necessarily stay around all summer, and give them a chance to shine in a plate of pasta all their own. I wanted try dishes in which one spring vegetable defined the flavor. An ensemble can be wonderful, but sometimes it's nice to have a star - and when a vegetable is at its seasonal peak, full of flavor and abundant, the time is right. Asparagus is a natural. Enlivened with a touch of lemon zest, some olive oil and fresh dill, and enriched with cheese, it makes a simple and beautiful pasta dish. Peas are another excellent choice. Italians are always throwing a handful of fresh peas into sauces with various other ingredients, but I wanted to get the delicate flavor of spring peas out in front. I used peas three times - shelled peas, snap peas, and pea shoots. First I combined some shelled peas with gently cooked onions and sweet lettuce (mild-mannered supporting players) and pureed them with a bit of cream. I added more shelled peas and some sliced pea pods, and cooked these only a few minutes. The pea shoots, the very tops of the plant with their tendrils and small leaves, went in at the last moment. Lemon and dill, the duo that seems to bring out the best in so many spring vegetables, added brightness and complexity. I tossed my pea sauce with cavatappi, and scattered grated Pecorino over it for a tangy edge. It was a delicious plate of pasta, and one you could only enjoy in this season. The peas were sweet, the slivers of snap peas crunchy, the lemon lively - all very springlike. Artichokes were my next adventure. I love steaming the large globe artichokes and eating them leaf by leaf, but pasta called for the small ones. Each artichoke plant produces one large artichoke, and a number of smaller ones. Although the smaller ones are sold as baby artichokes, they aren't babies at all. They are mature and flavorful at their small size, and have the advantage of no fibrous choke to be removed. I peeled and trimmed quite a mound of these dainty little artichokes, cut them into halves or quarters, and braised them in olive oil and lemon juice with some onion, a few slices of fresh fennel and a little garlic. Because they're small they cook to perfect tenderness in six or seven minutes; once the artichokes are trimmed, this is a quick dish. Oregano from my garden, sliced kalamata olives and fresh farmer cheese were added at the end, and I tossed everything with fusilli. You'd think I'd have had enough pasta by this time, but no - I never have enough pasta. I had an idea, something I'd been thinking about for a while: pasta with beets. I had eaten a delicious fresh ravioli with beet filling in a restaurant recently, and the idea intrigued me. Beets are with us all summer, but they're the most fun in the spring when they're small, with luxuriant foliage attached - glossy, firm, bright green tops. I made a pasta dish using the beets and their greens, and I used both red and golden beets. Of course the red ones stained everything a deep magenta, but that only made it look more interesting. I roasted the beets with a few whole garlic cloves, a technique I love for the deeply developed flavor and the easy peeling. Then I thought about the things I like in my roasted beet salads - walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, basil. I saut ed the chopped greens with more garlic, added lots of chopped basil, olive oil, toasted walnuts, and Parmesan cheese, and put it in the blender to make a beet green pesto. Thinned with a little vegetable broth, this became my sauce. When the pasta was al dente, I tossed it in the pan with the pesto, then quickly added the sliced beets, and sprinkled the rest of the toasted walnuts and some very creamy feta cheese on top. No one at my table that evening had eaten pasta with beets before, but they took to it as if it were an old favorite. We drank a nice chianti, and included radicchio leaves in a mixed salad, just to keep the color theme going. It was a terrific meal. Now I think of pasta primavera as a category, not a dish. As with all cooking that is centered on fresh produce, getting the right produce is key. Buy locally grown vegetables if you can. Go to a farmers' market, where you will find produce that is field-ripened, and just picked. Peas should be sweet (taste them raw, and if you can't stop eating them you know you've got the right ones), artichokes firm and plump, and beet greens shiny. Then surprise your taste buds with familiar tastes in new combinations. For a sample of my new pasta primavera repertoire, see "New Recipes". |