porchetta; penne with scapes, wild tomatoes, garlic flowers

It was a pasta night, but there was a first course, because I had thought the rigatoni I had in mind would be relatively insubstantial, although in the end that seemed not to be the case; but also because we love Principe porchetta.

The pasta would have satisfied a vegan; the antipasto was a different story.

  • four ounces of Principe Italian uncured roasted porchetta rolled in pancetta from Chelsea Whole Foods Market
  • a very generous handful of baby arugula from from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, dressed with Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, local Long Island sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, freshly ground black pepper, and a sprinkling of white balsamic vinegar
  • slices of ‘table bread’ from Lost Bread Company

The main course, as I hinted above, was quite simple, but far richer than I had expected; I credit the ‘wild’ tomatoes for that effect.

  • a pasta sauce assembled by heating and softening half a dozen Norwich Meadows Farm garlic scapes, cut into one-inch lengths, in a little olive oil inside a large antique copper pot over a medium flame, adding some crushed dried espelette pepper from Alewife Farm, tossed with 10 ounces of a Setaro Torre Annunziata Napoli Penne Rigatoni from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market that had been cooked al dente and drained, almost an entire cup of its cooking water added and stirred over a high flame until it had emulsified, the pasta arranged in shallow bowls before roughly 4 ounces of fantastic, sweet tiny ‘wild’ tomatoes (‘Matt’s Wild Cherry’) from Central Valley Farm were scattered on the top, garnished with garlic flowers from Alewife Farm, and a little olive oil drizzled around the edges