Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Lemony pasta with peas and asparagus

Ingredients

1/2 box of pasta (bow ties were nice tonight)
1 bunch of green asparagus
1/2 of a bag of frozen peas (probably 4 ounces)
canned pasta - 2 spoonfuls
half a lemon
EVOO
parmesan cheese

1. Put pasta to cook
2. Cut asparagus into 1/2 inch sizes. In a small pan, saute asparagus with EVOO
3. Drain pasta, reserving about 1/2 cup of pasta water
4. In a pan, cook the frozen peas with the pasta water. After a minute, add the asparagus and juice from the lemon. With a a fine zester, zest the half of a lemon over the peas.
5. Return pasta to pot and mix. Add pesto sauce to taste
6. Serve with generous amount of parmesan cheese

Friend and I made this today in a tiny kitchen with limited supplies (for example, i finely chopped lemon peel instead of zesting). I think if I did this again I'd use a different shape pasta, probably shells to capture the peas. I also think zesting the lemon would help sharpen the taste. Although fresh peas would be an obvious way to improve this, ultimately I think our "sauce" needed a little work. I think the correct order should be: add 1/2 cup of pasta water to peas in a pot. Wait for water to boil off some, then add 1/4 cup of cheese, mucho pesto, lemon juice, and twice as much lemon zest. Once that sauce thickens, then mix with pasta. Last note, I think some fresh basil mixed in at the end would help play up the taste of the pesto deliciously.

Regardless, for a quick dorm-room style meal, this was tasty and cheap!

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