Pears, Pecorino and Walnuts over pasta
I am heading out for the evening, hoping this will post okay in my absence. This was one of my favorite new recipes, I’d never heard of mixing pears and cheese over pasta, but come to find out, it’s actually a very popular ravioli. I think this recipe has all the flavor without all the work. From the recipe blog:
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Sometime contributor Michael Fallai shares a lot of terrific recipes on Facebook. The only hitch is they are often in Italian. Tonight’s featured recipe was one of those. If you ever want a laugh, let Google translate a recipe for you…and don’t let dissolve cheese in a water bath, or let your wine evaporate on flame lively intimidate you.
Perusing the weekly ads, I pulled together a few recipes based on what was on sale this week and headed out to the grill.
First up, Curried Turkey Burgers, recipe here. Great served on fresh pita and grill some fresh eggplant from the garden.
Collard greens were everywhere at the farmer’s market last weekend, so Collard Greens with Bacon seems timely, click here.
The dinner menu took advantage of the abundance of pears right now, Grilled Salmon in Dill Sauce with Pear Raspberry Salad. Click here for recipes and full menu.
JeffreyW and Mrs. J made some delicious looking Cream Horns (and to this Italian girl, seems the only difference between these and Cannoli is the filling). Purty pictures and directions can be found here.
What’s on your menu this last weekend of August? What garden fresh items are you enjoying right now? What are you grilling up?
Tonight’s featured recipe (pictured at top) became a poignant reminder of the earthquake in Italy. I had pulled it off the Italy site, translated it and put the ingredients on my shopping list just days before it hit.
Here is my version:
Pasta with Pears, Pecorino and Walnuts
- 10 oz linguine pasta
- 1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
- 3 large pears, very ripe, cored and cubed
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano (plus extra for garnish)
- 4 oz cream cheese or Mascarpone, cut into small cubes
- dash of white wine (opt)
- salt and pepper to taste
skillet, large pot
Bring water to boil in large pot, add salt and pasta and cook to al dente. Drain but do not rinse and add back to pot, off heat.
While pasta is cooking, heat skillet on medium heat, add walnuts. Stir constantly until lightly toasted, remove and set aside.
Add butter to skillet and melt before adding pears. Stir gently until well coated with butter. Cook until softened, gently stirring occasionally (you don’t want to break up the pears).
Add both cheeses and stir in completely. Let simmer on medium heat until lightly boiling. Add wine and let simmer away (about 5 minutes). Salt and pepper to taste.
Combine pasta, pear mixture and walnuts in large pot and mix well. Serve with extra Pecorino for garnish.
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That’s it for this week. I’m sorry I don’t have a new photo of Bixby for National Dog Day. Have a great weekend, enjoy the fading days of August – TaMara
schrodinger's cat
Needs a little more color, how about some pepper flakes and basil for garnish?
rikyrah
everything looks delicious
SiubhanDuinne
Pears, cheese, and pasta sounds like a killer combination.
Pears always seem to me like an autumn fruit — much more so than pumpkins, in fact. I love pears just about any way one can fix them, and I also think they are beautiful. I don’t consciously “collect” them, but I have several prints of still life paintings with pears, and a surprising lot of straw and ceramic and carved wooden pears as ornaments.
And I for one am very glad to see the end of August and end of summer coming soon. Hoping for somewhat cooler temperatures starting in the next week or so, as I expect to be spending a fair amount of time walking neighborhoods and knocking on doors to register people and GOTV for Hillary, and I don’t want no damned heat exhaustion to interfere.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
A little freshly-grated nutmeg would be wonderful on the pear-cheese-pasta thing.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Possibly. I am not too fond of cheesy pastas with exception of lasagna and even then I usually put 1/4 of the cheese that recipes suggest.
Keith P.
Anyone try pears with wine? I saw Feech LaManna eating them on an ep of The Sopranos and have been curious about trying it. I would think the sour and sweet would play very well together (hell, Italians eat it, so it must be good, right?)
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m just the opposite. I love pretty much every kind of cheese, and would be more likely to add a bunch extra to a recipe, just because, than to cut back on the amount.
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith P.:
I have had pears poached in wine.
Have you ever had Poire Williams?
Keith P.
@SiubhanDuinne: Never had it, but have always wanted it in my liquor cabinet. I don’t drink much any more (maybe a total of a bottle of wine in a year, or a couple of shots of whiskey, again, in a year) but I like having a wide range of top-shelf booze as a kind of decoration/courtesy for guests.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
The farmers market here has started selling Gingergold apples. That’s my sign that fall’s almost started.
r€nato
I’m the guy who posted the pears/pecorino/walnuts recipe that TaMara posted here… please pardon a bit of foodie pedantry, but the original recipe calls for pecorino di Norcia (yes, that Norcia), but that can be anywhere from difficult to impossible to find in the US. Pecorino romano – the type of pecorino that is by far the most commonly-found in the US – may not be the best substitute for other types of pecorino because it is too strong and salty. I’ve discussed this with a foodie neighbor, we believe that asiago could be an acceptable substitute if one cannot find imported pecorino sardo or pecorino di Norcia or domestic pecorino. If you do manage to find it, it’s probably going to be rather expensive anyway.
She did find the dish delicious as-is with the romano… those of us who are more particular might try the asiago route.
And while I am being fussy… I generally abhor pecorino romano as a parmesan substitute (as it is more often used). Costco used to carry grana padano, which is a perfectly wonderful and economical substitute for parmigiano reggiano that quite a few Italians also use for this purpose. Sadly, they stopped carrying it after a year or two…
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith P.:
The nice thing about it is that as the original eau de vie is consumed, you just replace it with fairly cheap generic brandy. The main thing is never to let the pear itself be exposed to air, because it will immediately go all black and rancid and nasty. Pear-shaped, you might say. But just keeping it covered in alcohol and allowing the pear to provide the nice fruit flavor gives it more or less eternal life. I was given mine as a gift about 35 years ago, and it’s still just fine, though I’ve topped off the brandy many times.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Gingergold. That’s a variety I haven’t met, but I LOVE the name! Wonder whether they’d be available in the South?
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Google says it’s a New York State Apple, but it originated in Virginia.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
I will definitely look for it. Thanks.
WaterGirl
@debbie: @SiubhanDuinne: Me, too. Only I wondering whether they would be available in the midwest!
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
@WaterGirl:
One of the things I most love and find most fascinating about apples is all the different colours they come in. From wine-dark purple to bright scarlet to a soft peachy-apricot shade to deep yellow to clear green — just beautiful to the eye as well as to the palate.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: I think you could substitute it with Golden Delicious.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Now’s the time to look; they’re early fall apples. Be sure to feel them. Once they start going soft, they’re disappointing.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
GD is actually not my favourite. Nothing really wrong with it, it just doesn’t excite me. Or it may be that Golden and Red Delicious are so ubiquitous in the grocery stores that they’ve lost all their charm for me. Not a big fan of supermarket produce these days.
Keith P.
@Keith P.: This post is retroactively in memory of the great Robert Loggia. “Yeahhhhhh….”
Thor Heyerdahl
There’s always the northern German recipe of pears, beans and bacon.
http://www.live-like-a-german.com/recipes/show/109/pears–beans-and-bacon
laura
@SiubhanDuinne: this year’s Sebastopol Gravensteins were lovely and short seasoned as usual, and ushers in the pears.
It felt like the first day of the end of summer in Sacramento today -a week of delta breezes from the San Francisco Bay and cooler than normal -and likely followed by a blast furnace week or two, here and there until November. But the season is shifting.
Pears and pasta is on the dinner menu for Sunday!
amygdala
Tomatoes (from a friend’s garden) and eggplant (from the farmers market); made pasta alla norma for dinner tonight. No grilling, since I’m an apartment dweller.
Breakfast this time of year is a small handful (each) of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries, with a peach, avocado toast, and a cup of tea.
Produce is the saving grace of summer, as far as I’m concerned.