An historic east coast snow storm the weekend before Halloween prompted me to begin thinking about Christmas even though I live far from the cold, wet and nasty white stuff that wreaked havoc in the lives of family and friends in Connecticut. Every Christmas Eve, our dear friends Arlene and Augie prepared their traditional Italian dish together. Christmas Eve Pasta, as it was so aptly named, consisted of angel hair pasta dressed with a simple sauce made from olive oil, anchovies, garlic, black olives, raisins and pine nuts. Augie joked that he only knew how to make his part and Arlene knew only hers and that’s why they stayed together for more than 50 years. When Arlene was too ill to cook one Christmas Eve, he learned how to make the dish entirely on his own. It wasn’t long after that Christmas that Arlene lost her battle against cancer. In the months following, Augie graciously gave me all Arlene’s recipes because he knew how much I loved to cook and that I would use and treasure them, always keeping her memory alive.
I took Arlene’s recipe and altered the amounts of ingredients while striving to keep the integrity of the original sauce. Thus, I used only a small amount of olive oil in which I sautéed the anchovy fillets until they magically melted into the oil, losing any fishy taste and taking on an almost nutty flavor. Plenty of garlic went into the sauté pan next and as soon as it gave up its fragrance, I added the olives, raisins and pine nuts. As I watched the raisins plump and the pine nuts brown lightly, I could almost see Arlene and Augie standing at their stove each Christmas Eve preparing their simple dinner. The combination of sweet, salty and nutty tastes lent a complexity to this dish that made it surprisingly elegant.
Although my pizza recipe calls for regular angel hair pasta, I used about 4 ounces of whole wheat angel hair pasta in an effort to make myself feel better should I go off the deep end and consume the entire test pizza. Actually, it worked out because it enhanced the nutty taste of the pizza. After mixing the pasta in with the sauce, I had to test it to make sure it tasted good enough to go onto the pizza. Now, do you really believe that? I tasted it because it smelled so amazingly delicious I couldn’t stop myself. It really was so delectable, I had a hard time controlling the size of my ‘taste’ and thought of postponing the taste testing of the pizza so I could eat the rest of the pasta right from the pan. However, reason prevailed and I was able to get a grip on myself while I still had enough of the pasta mixture for the top of the pizza. I put a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese on the pre grilled crust, topped it with the pasta mixture being sure to get all the pine nuts and raisins remaining in the bottom of the pan and finished it with a generous covering of freshly grated Parmagiano-Reggiano and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Interestingly, the parm looked like drifts of freshly fallen snow. I popped it back on the grill and in less than 10 minutes I was removing a beautiful Christmas Eve Pasta pizza from the grill.  |
| CHRISTMAS EVE PASTA PIZZA |
My only regret was that I had no one with whom to share it. One taste confirmed the recipe worked … the other tastes can be chalked up to lack of self-control when confronted with an unusually unique and tasty pizza that might not be good cold or reheated. Cook’s Note: It was perfectly good several hours later when served at room temperature. I’m not sure if it would stand up to reheating. Maybe I’ll try that next time.
Today was a good day and I know that Arlene was smiling in heaven when she witnessed me making and lovingly consuming this pizza from her special Christmas Eve Pasta recipe.
No comments:
Post a Comment