It is a common misperception that all pasta dishes are based on Italian recipes; while it is true that many indeed are, some other influences often come into play, as such French restaurants as Gaslight in Boston have shown, for instance. This cozy brasserie in the South End of the city offers a number of French and Mediterranean dishes, with their short rib tagliatelle being a particularly memorable dish, and looking through some cookbooks, I noticed that tagliatelle seems to be used in a lot of French dishes, so I decided to try a twist on a pesto dish that I often make. The base of the recipe--the freshly-made pesto--comes from the Italian version I do, but the rest of the recipe veers off a bit into French cooking, with the blue cheese adding a real zing to the dish.
Prep: | Cooking: | Total Time: | Servings: 2-4
Ingredients:
8 ounces tagliatelle pasta
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 1/2 cups basil leaves
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup parmesan cheese, grated, plus more for serving
2/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup blue cheese, crumbled
Directions:
1. Place pasta in salted boiling water and set time according to directions.
2. While pasta is cooking, place pine nuts in a pan and cook at medium heat, tossing them every 30 seconds until they start turning golden brown (about 2-3 minutes). Remove from heat.
3. Combine garlic, half of the pine nuts, half of the basil leaves, and salt and use an immersion blender or food processor to coarsely chop the ingredients. Add parmesan cheese and briefly pulse again, then add olive oil and pulse until pesto is smooth.
4. Julienne the remaining basil leaves.
5. When pasta is done cooking, place in large pan, add pesto, remaining pine nuts, and julienned basil leaves and gently combine ingredients. Add reserved cooking water as needed a bit at a time to give pesto a velvety texture.
6. Just before removing from heat, add blue cheese and carefully combine with pasta and the rest of the ingredients. Serve with extra grated or shredded parmesan cheese.
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