Dinner Tonight: 'Garbage Pail' Pasta
I stumbled on this recipe on the website of food writer Faith Willinger, who was recommended by Mario Batali on the Babbo restaurant website as a good source of intelligence on Italian food and restaurants.
I ended up falling in love with her website's little reminiscings about life in Italy, where's she's lived for close to three decades. And the one recipe she gives on her site is for "garbage pail pasta." I'm not sure if this is a commonly used title for this dish—the only thing it makes me think of is "garbage sandwich" or "garbage plate" or "garbage salad," wherein garbage refers to whatever leftovers are in the fridge and the the latter word the form those leftovers take before going down the hatch.
Who knows. Maybe because it's a pasta you could easily make with pantry goods lying around (it reminds me of pasta puttanesca in this way). But it's a really pleasant dish, with a mix of toasted nuts playing off the sweetness of the raisins—together giving it this sort of foraged feel—and the piquancy of chopped olives and capers. In the adaptation I've doubled the tomatoes but otherwise wouldn't change a thing.
Garbage Pail Pasta
- serves 2 -
Adapted from FaithWillinger.com.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon walnuts
1 tablespoon hazelnuts
1 tablespoon pine nuts
2 tablespoons raisins
1 tablespoon salt-packed capers, rinsed, drained
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes, about ten
1 tablespoon. minced flat-leaf parsley
5 to 6 pitted black olives, roughly chopped
Sea salt to taste
8 ounces spaghetti
Procedure
1. Bring a large pot of salty water to boil. Cook the spaghetti until al dente, reserve 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water, and drain.
2. In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat and cook the nuts until gently browned and fragrant. Add the tomatoes, capers, and oregano, and cook until the tomatoes wilt and break down, stirring occassionally. Add the olives, raisins, and half the parsley and season with a big pinch of salt, the continue cooking for a minute or two.
3. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss. Add a little pasta water and toss over low heat as the pasta melds with the sauce, removing from the heat before it gets too dry.
4. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and the remaining parsley.
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3 Comments:
We had something like this that was a remnant of the great depression era italians, they called it mushones or mishones. A mish mash of whatever you had on hand and pasta. I don't like sweets with savories so this recipe would not be what I would make.
My mushones is usually some sun dried tomatoes with whatever already cooked veg is on hand.
In the summer mushones is the go to dish. Leftover ripened, chopped tomatoes, cucuzzo squash sauteed with some green leafy spinach or escarole greens and some onion and garlic a little white wine and boil that pasta and you got a great meal. Grab the cheese and the grater and head for the table.
Great topic Blake.
JerzeeTomato at 5:07PM on 03/03/09
We do the same sort of thing with risotto. I call it 'Clean Out The Fridge" Vegetable risotto. Typically it's what I make in the summer when I have little bits of leftover veggies from our CSA box.
cooklocal at 6:30PM on 03/03/09
This requires a recipe?
How about this alternative:
1. Cook pasta of any kind (in salted water, of course). Go ahead and combine pasta shapes if you want to use up ends of packages, but note if some pastas requires longer cooking than others.
2. While pasta is cooking look through fridge, freezer and cupboards for any appropriate add-ins for said pasta.
3. Open cans/bags/packaging, careful not to cut yourself on the cans.
4. If frozen, add to pasta water while cooking.
5. Drain pasta.
6. Toss with other ingredients.
...etc.
CanadianFoodieGirl at 11:15AM on 03/04/09