bresaola, wild cress; tagliolini, rock shrimp, chili, fennels

It was New Years Eve, so in our tradition there would be a delicate meal which included seafood in some form, and/or maybe an equally light pasta. This year it was both, with some excellent local bresaola substituting for the more common first course of oysters.

  • Some wonderful bresaola (2.5 ounces) from Salumeria Biellese, a 95-year-old business whose store is still located 5 short blocks north of our apartment, although the factory is now in Hackensack, New Jersey, purchased from Eataly, which is 2 long blocks east of us, dressed with a little Greek olive oil, ‘Demi’, produced in Laconia, Velles, in the Peloponnese, purchased from John at the 23rd Street Greenmarket last summer, a bit of organic California lemon juice, and some cracked pepper, surrounding tiny plants of wild cress from Lani’s Farm, which were also drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice
  • slices of a She Wolf Bakery baguette

The choice for dressing a pasta dish was made that same day, at the market, the market in this case being our local Eataly, since I hadn’t found anything special in the Union Square Greenmarket earlier (because of the holiday, Wednesday venders were there on Tuesday that week, as they had been the week before, when Christmas Day had also been a Wednesday).

The recipe I bounced off, ignoring the first section, which describes a bonito butter, was from Bon Appétit.

  • the ingredients I used included 12 ounces of fresh tagliolini pasta (eggs, semolina flour, water) from Eataly;  one small green (unripe) Marzano spicy pepper from Windfall Farms, seeds removed, finely chopped; 2 wide strips of lemon peel and a tablespoon of juice from an organic Whole Foods Market California lemon; 8 ounces of sweet Florida rock shrimp, peeled and deveined, from Eataly; a bit of Sicilian Hyblaean Mountains wild fennel seed; one Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farms, the green parts only and thinly sliced; and a garnish of bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge