Hail Mary!
From my food safety manager’s certificate to a propane permit, buying a stove and making sure I had enough pots and pans, it took me weeks to prepare for my first live demo in July 2011. The menu, the part I was least stressed about and most familiar with was almost an afterthought. It was July, I knew what was fresh and plentiful at the market, and I knew what I wanted to prepare at home that week.
Week two was almost a relief. I tweaked a few logistics with lessons learned from week one and prepared four more fresh, seasonal recipes with a vinaigrette to fill time as needed. The crowd built in front of me with several familiar faces from the week before.
Photograph by Jenny Lehman
Week three I saw many of those same faces - local residents who shopped at the market each Saturday - and realized that, if I was going to keep giving these demos week after week, I was going to need four new recipes each time I came out. At first it was easy. I had a deep repertoire of preparations for summer's zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and eggplant. Then came the fall with a whole new palate of ingredients. By the middle of the next summer, however, I spotted a problem. I was running out of ideas.
Enter the hail Mary pass. Every once in a while I try out an unexpected ingredient pairing, an oddball spice or a new cooking technique. Usually the results are interesting, tasty but unlikely to make your regular rotation. Once, and just once, it was a total disaster - you never need to try stir-fried rhubarb, trust me, I made that mistake for you. Sometimes that Hail Mary pass delivers a touchdown, an odd-sounding but delicious recipe I look forward to surprising audiences with again and again and that they tell me they keep preparing at home.
That's the story behind strawberries, chives and pasta. It was spring and I had loaded my menus with as many asparagus and fresh greens recipes as I could. With little else arriving from local farms yet I grabbed the first strawberries of the season, still more acidic than sweet. Chives cemented the dish as savory while fresh egg pasta and rich ricotta cheese balanced the acidity of the berries. Crispy prosciutto gave me salty, sweet pork and a little crunch while a drizzle of good olive oil added a subtle note of pleasant bitterness and one more layer of complexity to the flavor.
Sounds weird, right? But every time I make it lips are licked and eyes light up. People walk right around the market to buy the ingredients and share their home kitchen success with me later that week. And that, my friends, sounds like a touchdown.
Strawberry Chive Pasta
Serves 4
Sounds weird, tastes delicious. The acidity in fresh strawberries balances rich pasta and ricotta cheese. The fried prosciutto delivers a crispy punch of sweet, salty pork while chives freshen things up. Trust me, serve this once and you’ll be making it again and again.
Ingredients:
1/4 lb thinly sliced prosciutto
1 lb fresh egg tagliatelle or linguine
1 pint strawberries, cored and thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh ricotta
1/4 cup snipped chives
1 tbs olive oil
Directions:
Warm a 12” skillet over medium heat. Add prosciutto and cook, turning once, until crisp. Crumble and reserve.
Bring a large pot of water to a roiling boil. Salt generously and add fresh pasta. Cook for two minutes and drain, reserving 1/2 cup of cooking water.
Toss pasta with strawberries, ricotta, chives, olive oil, and reserved prosciutto. Season with black pepper and a pinch of salt. If pasta gets gummy or you have trouble separating strands, toss with a little bit of the reserved cooking water.
