One of my current favorite cookbooks is Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. The hefty book is chock-full of recipes and variations, and is a wonderful kitchen resource. On the other end of the spectrum is Bittman's slim and spare book The Minimalist Cooks Dinner
which is based on his food columns in the New York Times. 100 recipes, one per every 2-page spread. Even with this economy, being Mark Bittman's work, the book does provide ways to vary each featured recipe.
I've paged through the book and marked a bunch of recipes, but given the bountiful basil supply in my garden, the Trenette with Pesto jumped to the front of the line this week. This traditional dish from Genoa combines pasta with potatoes and green beans, and sounded perfect for summer dining.
n.o.e.'s notes:
- You can find the recipe online .
- Bittman explains that in Genoa the trenette pasta shape is always paired with pesto. Linguine is a close substitute, so that's what I used.
- The recipe has very easy instructions for boiling all the ingredients in the same pot. The version in the book has the potatoes cook for 3 minutes before adding the pasta, so that's what I did. The beans get added when the pasta is half cooked (about 5 minutes after adding the pasta) It worked perfectly!
the verdict:
I served this pasta with grilled chicken Italian sausages. We enjoyed it so much that we didn't even mind eating it twice more that week!
8 comments:
Oooooh - I really like how you added potatoes to this dish. I wouldnt normally think to add them, but they really look like they made it extra special!
How tasty! Thanks for sharing another great recipe!
I need to take a look at this book. I've heard such good things about it. The pasta looks great!
I was just looking for pesto in the market today - and can you believe they were out of it?
It looks delicious, although I can never figure out why the Italians eat potatoes with their pasta.
I've bookmarked this before. I've always been curious about potatoes and pasta, it seems like overkill.
I have "How to Cook Everything", and I never use it. I may need to revisit.
I've been meaning to grab that book from the library one of these days - thanks for the reminder! This dish looks yummy, especially served with Italian sausage.
Oh, yum! Your pasta looks wonderful. I need to get The Minimalist cookbook.
Pesto is such a wonderful invention. Boiling everything in the same pot sounds super helpful.
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