Chive Pasta

My friend Marcia Kiesel developed a wonderful recipe years ago for Food & Wine magazine... Chive Fettuccine with Lobster... OK, a little over the top, but hey, it was the '80s!  I've made a variation on this for years...  Just a fresh egg chive pasta sauced with Parm and a little cream...

But as you all know, I've gotten obsessed with eggless pasta.  So I wondered if this would translate... and boy, did it ever.  Into ½ cup of water, I added ⅔ cup of chopped chives and some salt.  I processed this until there were very few pieces of chive visible... and then added one cup of Semolina and one cup of AP flour.  This was a little dry, so I added a bit more water.  (But that will all depend on the day, the humidity, your chives, etc.)

I let it rest covered in the fridge for 2 hours... then rolled and cut it into wide strips.  Once cooked - this was remarkable - no egg to get in the way of the chive flavor... and so delicate.  For a sauce, I sweated one chopped shallot in EVOO, then added a splash of white wine, and a bit of chicken stock... reduced it by half, added a generous splash of cream, and tossed it on the chive pasta (which only took about 5 minutes to cook).

A sprinkling of Parm and a few grinds of pepper, a plateful of Green Zebras and Black Brandywines from the garden... life doesn't get much better.

PS.  As I had a half-batch of this wonderful pasta left over, I tried another sauce a few days later.  This time, to the cooked pasta, I just added about a ¼ cup of EVOO, LOTS of cracked pepper, a handful of chopped chives, a little pasta water, and some Parm.  Clean clean clean flavor... the pasta itself is the star.

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