Pesto alla Trepanese

Since I’m cooking just for myself this week, I decided to select items that were interesting to me and contained ingredients my family is normally fussy about- so insert Pesto alla Trapanese.

This pasta dish originated from the Sicilian city of Trepani and is much like the more popular green pesto we eat in the US in that they both have basil, oil, cheese and nuts, but the Trepani pesto also has a little tomato. It is considered a “fresh sauce” - that means it is not heated or cooked but rather prepared at room temperature and mixed with hot pasta and a little of the pasta water to create an emulsion. It’s perfect on a hot summer night when the last thing you want to do is heat up your kitchen and work in there for an hour.

The only ”cooking” I did was heat up a pot of salted water for the pasta. While it was coming up to a boil, I cut and seeded a few plum tomatoes and set them aside. I then put the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and began pulsing it until it was all smooth.

When the water was just at a boil, I threw the tomato halves in the pot for about 15 seconds and then scooped them out and plunged them into a small bowl of ice water. After they cooled for a moment, I was able to easily peel the skins off and give them a quick chop and placed them in the food processor too.

The pasta went into the water to cook until al dente, or until firm to the bite. I placed the sauce in a large glass bowl and when the pasta was ready I scooped it directly from the hot water into the pesto sauce. I then mixed it, adding a little bit more pasta water until the sauce became smooth and creamy.

It was delicious! You have to get excited about a 15 minute - basically no cook dinner - that tastes like it’s from a restaurant! Is it bad that I ate 2 bowls?

I’m not having any luck finding my laptop so I can’t access my recipe app with my mobile devices, so until I find it, I’m going to include the recipe here. Let me know if you try it and what you think!

Pesto alla Trepanese

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

4 garlic cloves

pinch of kosher salt

1/2 cup slivered almonds

about 35 large basil leaves

2 oz Pecorino Romano cheese

2 oz Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

1 lb plum tomatoes, peeled and seeded

1/4 olive oil

1 lb long pasta (spaghetti or linguini)

Directions

1. Pulse garlic with almonds until roughly chopped. Add basil, cheese, tomatoes, and olive oil and process to a rough paste. Season with salt. Transfer sauce to a large glass serving bowl.

2. In a pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta until al dente. Transfer pasta to glass bowl, reserving some of the pasta-cooking water. Toss well, adding 1 tablespoon of pasta-cooking water at a time until a creamy sauce forms that's not too dry or too wet. Season with salt, if needed. The pasta will firm up as it cools so you can add more pasta-cooking water to loosen it, if desired.

3. Serve with more cheese to taste.