A More Prudent Farmers’ Market Pasta

Eating Locally, Entrees, Pasta, Vegetarian /

As I mentioned on Monday, I have a new Sunday dinner tradition: Delaney’s Culinary Fresh pasta mixed with anything I find that morning at the farmers’ market. Last week, I could not resist buying a variety of beautiful, wild mushrooms despite a slightly sketchy story about their origin.

Fortunately, I have made a cyber friend, Melanie Lytle, author of the blog Livin’ the Vida Local, who set me straight. On a year-long mission to eat food grown primarily in the San Diego foodshed, Melanie has extensively researched local food producers, from those setting up booths at farmers’ markets to those selling meat, fish and dairy products in shops. Her blog has already been a tremendous resource for me.

After reading in an article Melanie sent me that the mushrooms I purchased last Sunday might actually have been shipped from Japan, I felt quite deceived. I now know, however, on this big West Coast, I must become a more savvy farmers’-market shopper.

And last Sunday I did make some prudent choices as well, including 8 (yes 8) bundles of Swiss chard which I purchased from the Eli’s Ranch (a farm located in Fallbrook) stand. It was a little excessive, I admit, but I had just read in Michael Pollan’s latest book, In Defense of Food, about the importance of eating leaves as opposed to seeds and about how the shift from a food chain with green plants at its base to one based on seeds — a shift embodied in the Western Diet — has had detrimental consequences to our health. (More on this book in an upcoming entry.)

So, I may have fibbed a little. Delaney’s Culinary Fresh pasta has become a little more than a Sunday night tradition. It has been more like a twice-a-week dinner affair, which supplies us with leftovers for lunch at least twice a week as well. The simplest and most delicious way I have thus far prepared this fresh linguini is this: Sauté sliced onions and fennel together over medium heat until caramelized. Transfer to a bowl. In the same pan, sauté Swiss chard with garlic and red pepper flakes until wilted and add to the bowl. Cook the pasta for two minutes, add to the bowl of vegetables, sprinkle with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and serve. Ben has been very pleased with this combination, loving particularly the toothsomeness of the pasta and the texture of the chard.

As I mentioned above, I will devote an entry entirely to In Defense Of Food, but for now, I’ll give you a little preview. In the last 50 pages of the book, Pollan gives some basic rules to help readers more simply figure out what to eat. Here are a few: Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food (such as Go-Gurt Portable Yogurt tubes). Avoid Products that make health claims (because even products such as corn oil can make claims such as, “One tablespoon of corn oil daily may reduce the risk of heart disease”.) And my favorite: Have a glass of wine with dinner.

Here’s another good one — one that is particularly relevant to this delectable fresh linguini: Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A.) unfamiliar, B.) unpronounceable, and C.) more than five in number. As a little experiment, I pulled a bag of egg noodles from my cupboard. Here are the ingredients: semolina, durum flour, egg yolks, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid. The Delaney’s Culinary Fresh red pepper linguini, on the other hand, is made with semolina flour, red bell pepper, egg and sea salt — ingregients we all recognize and know how to pronounce.

Visit the Delaney’s Culinary Fresh Web site to read owner Jordan Stone’s inspiring story, to find other locations to purchase this handmade pasta, and to read other ways to prepare a wonderful dinner in no time.

Farmers’ Market Linguini II
Serves 4

5 thin slices pancetta (Note: This can be omitted. I’ve made this basic recipe twice now, once with pancetta and once with olive oil, and both are delicious. Substitute a tablespoon of olive oil for the pancetta if desired.)
2 small heads fennel
one onion
kosher salt
two large heads Swiss chard, escarole or kale, washed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
red pepper flakes
1 lb. red pepper linguini purchased, if possible, from Delaney’s Culinary Fresh
Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
freshly cracked black pepper

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

2. Slice the pancetta into thin strips or cut into small dice. Place in a large, nonstick sauté pan over medium-low heat. Cook until the fat melts and the pancetta begins to brown. When the pancetta turns dark brown and becomes crispy, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon or tongs, and set aside. (This could take as long as 20 minutes or as fast as 10, depending on how patient you are with the heat dial and how much time you have to spare.)

3. Meanwhile, slice the fennel into half moons. Slice the onion into half moons as well. After removing the pancetta from the pan, sauté the onion and fennel together over medium heat until slightly caramelized. (Again, this can take more or less time depending on patience.) Season lightly with salt. Once slightly browned, transfer mixture to a bowl and set aside.

4. Meanwhile, if using chard, cut the stems from the greens and chop into 1/2-inch chunks. Cut the greens roughly too. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, add the stems and sauté over medium heat until tender, about five minutes. Turn the heat to high, add the garlic and the greens and season with salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Using tongs, rearrange the greens until nicely wilted. Turn off heat and add fennel-onion mixture to pan. Toss to combine. (If cooking the pasta right away, you can keep the pan on low heat.)

5. Cook pasta for two minutes. Drain, but do not rinse. Place pasta in a large bowl. Add a few large handfuls of the grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Add vegetables and reserved crispy pancetta pieces, and toss. Serve immediately, passing more cheese and freshly cracked pepper on the side.

NOTE: Comments on this post have been closed due to an infiltration of spam. Please email me if you have any questions: ali.c.stafford@gmail.com. Thank you.

Farmers’ Market Mushrooms & Melograno Nostalgia

3 Comments / Eating Locally, Entrees, Pasta, Vegetarian /

I seem to have been deceived. Contrary to what I believed before arriving to the West Coast nearly three weeks ago, it does rain in Southern California. And it also gets cloudy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. And while I’m not longing for East Coast weather by any means, yesterday, while shopping at the San Clemente’s farmers’ market, I found myself craving my all-time favorite pasta dish — pappardelle tartufate — found in only one place: a little, Italian BYOB, located 2,378 miles away (as the crow flies) in Philadelphia.

I have been mocked by many about my love for Melograno. Whenever anyone I know visits Philadelphia, I point them to the corner of 22nd and Spruce; whenever I learn of anyone living in Philadelphia who hasn’t been to Melograno, I gasp, and then point them to the corner of 22nd and Spruce. I also tell them what to order: the baby arugula and prosciutto salad to start; the papardelle tartufate as an entrée; and the tiramisu for dessert. Melograno serves many other delectable appetizers, desserts (and entrées) too, but the papardelle tartufate —a mix of homemade pappardelle pasta, wild mushrooms, chopped walnuts, Parmigiano Reggiano and truffle oil — must never be substituted.Anyway, while at the market yesterday, I began chatting with Don of Don’s Farm in Wildomar, CA. Don sells eggs, preserves, honey, apple butter, avocados, squash and a host of other vegetables. He also a variety of mushrooms — maitake, brown beech, white beech and royal trumpet — though I am unsure if he grows or just sells these mushrooms.

In any case, Don briefly described the growing technique: these bunches each grow in a bottle in a temperature-controlled room under a fine mist. They are not hydroponic; they are not grown in soil; they are totally organic. Don tells me, “they” — I’m not sure who this refers to, thus the confusion as to who is growing the mushrooms — are building a multi-million dollar facility to increase production of these prized fungi. (As a supporter of small, diversified farms practicing environmentally responsible growing techniques, I am instinctively averse to the idea of this facility: Is growing mushrooms this way any different than the way Earthbound Farms grows their organic greens, in large facilities requiring huge amounts of energy to keep the temperature controlled to prevent the greens from wilting? I’ll have to investigate further, for now, however, I’ll continue to enjoy these delectable fungi.)

Don recommends keeping the mushrooms in their plastic wrappings until cooking time. Do not wash them, he says, and snip off just the outermost end before cooking.

These are the maitake, meaning “dancing mushroom” in Japanese:
I cannot say this recipe replicates Melograno’s pasta exactly, but it has satisfied my fresh pasta-truffle oil-wild mushroom craving. And this pasta, purchased at the Delaney’s Culinary Fresh stand at the farmers’ market, while completely different than the pappardelle at Melograno, is unbelievable. Last week I bought a pound of the red-pepper linguini and this week a pound each of the lemon basil and red pepper. The pasta will keep, I am told, for up to a week in the refrigerator or months in the freezer. Requiring only two minutes in boiling water to cook, this flavorful pasta remains toothsome and chewy and has already become a Sunday evening tradition.
Farmers’ Market Linguini
Inspired by Melograno in Philadelphia
Serves 4

8 pkgs. mixed mushrooms: I used a mix of white beech, brown beech and maitake purchased from Don’s Farm at the San Clemente’s farmers’ market (Note: I only used four packages and found that was not sufficient for the one pound of pasta. I am doubling the recipe I made today as a result. I would guess that each package of mushrooms weighs about 4 ounces, so a total of 2 lbs. (or 1.75lbs at least) of mushrooms is required for 1 lb. of pasta)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons unsalted butter, plus more to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 sprigs thyme, leaves removed and finely chopped
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 lb. fresh linguini (I used fresh lemon-basil linguini purchased from the Delaney’s Culinary Fresh stand at the San Clemente’s farmers’ market, but any fresh or dried pasta will do. I actually think a dried orecchiette or bowtie pasta might be a better shape to toss with the mushrooms, though this fresh pasta is unbelievable!)
freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
truffle oil, optional
a few big, thick shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano to top each plate
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

2. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, heat one tablespoon of oil with one teaspoon of butter. When hot, add half of the mushrooms, shake the pan once, then let them cook undisturbed for one to two minutes — this will help them get a nice brown, seared edge. Shake the pan again, and if necessary, stir and rearrange the mushrooms with a wooden spoon. Let cook until tender and slightly caramelized. Add half of the garlic and thyme, kosher salt and pepper to taste, and let cook for one minute longer. Transfer these mushrooms to a bowl then repeat with remaining oil, butter, mushrooms, etc. When all the mushrooms have finished cooking, return the first batch to the sauté pan to keep warm.

3. Cook the fresh pasta for 2 minutes. Alternatively, cook dried pasta until al dente. Drain. Place pasta in a large bowl. Add a dab of butter and a handful of grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Add the mushrooms and toss gently to combine.

4. Place small mounds of the pasta on all plates. Drizzle each serving with a tiny (or not so tiny) amount of truffle oil, if desired. Top each with the thick shavings of Parmigiano.

Note: Melograno also adds chopped walnuts, which add a nice crunch and good flavor. I forgot to purchase them and so did not include them in the recipe, but they would be a nice addition to this dish.