This is a beautiful green and rustic pasta dish full of flavour to your palate and colours to your eyes. The speck, peas, saffron and wild rocket together with the stoneground wholegrain einkorn pasta makes this a warm and glorious dish.
Best recommendation for this sauce is the choice of einkorn or spelt flour and the Gigli shape, or another short pasta shape like casarecce, penne or conchiglioni, as this wrap best all the green peas and speck ingredients giving all the taste to your pasta dish.
I remember the first time I have tried this sauce, I was in Veneto region near the lake Garda in Italy and since then has been one of my favourite one.
Just a few ingredients and very easy to prepare. I hope you like this recipe as much as I do! Don't forget to add lots of parmesan cheese to your pleasure ;)
For 2 people:
200g Einkorn or Spelt short pasta
2 small shallots
100gr speck
200gr peas
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of saffron
rocket
salt
Parmesan cheese
In a large saucepan, start to prepare and boil the water with salt where later you will be cooking your pasta.
Place the saffron in a small bowl and poor 100ml of hot water.
In a large pan place the olive oil and the shallots cut into strips on a medium/high heat. When the shallots starts to turn translucent add the green peas, both fresh and frozen.
Cook them over medium heat, turning them often with a wooden spoon and constantly adding a few ladles of water, for about 12-13 minutes. Add the saffron water for another 2-3 minutes or until the peas is cooked.
Add very little salt, because the speck, which you will add later, is already quite tasty.
Cut the speck into strips and add it to the peas. Let it cook for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, boil the pasta in a plenty of salted water.
Drain one minute before the cooking time and pour into the pan with the sauce by adding few ladles of cooking pasta water. Cook on a high heat for the last minute in the sauce by turning constantly to get a creamy looking pasta.
Don't dry the sauce.
This last process in Italy is called "Mantecare".
Serve in a plate with sliced rocket on the top and parmesan cheese.
Enjoy!
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