Pesto con Trofie

Trofie are unknown by many lovers of pasta, and it's a pity. They are hand-made little strips of egg dough that come from Liguria and Umbria in Italy's North. Not coincidentally, that's also where the world's tastiest basil grows wild. So trofie with pesto is a natural.



Pair it with some roast chicken and cucumber/tomato/red pepper/lemon salad and you've got yourself a serious meal.

You can buy trofie at Rainbow, in a corner bin where they've got all the off-center pastas. They're not cheap -- $4.95/pound, but half a pound feeds two with leftovers and it's really worth it when you're making pesto.

Incidentally, The Great Plotnik's pesto recipe could not be easier: Take two or three garlic cloves and put 'em in the food processer (you can easily do this by hand in a mortar and pestle, it just takes a little longer). Grind a few seconds, then add a few TBS pine nuts. Grind a few more seconds, then add a bunch of fresh basil, stems removed. Grind a second or two and then drizzle in olive oil, while grinding, up to 1/3C but probably less, until you start to see that your pesto has the consistency you like. You can put a few TBS pecorino romano cheese in too, or parmagiana. The whole thing takes less than five minutes.

After you cook the trofie for seven minutes or so, drain the water but save 2-3 TBS to dilute the pesto. This way, when you add the pesto to the trofie, the starchy pasta water helps the pesto adhere to the pasta. Yum-a-bella!