Cooking with "Six Seasons of Pasta," by Joshua McFadden

[blue_dolphin]

I’ve cooked a few recipes from Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg. I have no plans to cook every recipe but I’m enjoying it so I figured I’d make a topic for it. Please join in if you have the book. 
 

If you don’t have the book, there are several recipes available on the author’s website: https://www.joshuamcfadden.com/projects/six-seasons-of-pasta

 

I’ll start off with my favorite recipe so far, the pasta with fresh corn, jalapeños and brown butter. I posted it over in the dinner topic but didn’t say much about it - it’s excellent as written and very versatile as well.

The book cautions that this should only be made with fresh sweet corn so I figured I should make it while local corn is still available at the farmers market. Half of the corn gets sautéed in butter so both turn brown and nutty.  Sliced jalapeños (I used Fresnos) go in next along with a splash of cream and we’re encouraged to smash the kernels to make a chunky, chile-infused purée. The rest of the corn goes in along with the pasta and enough pasta water to keep it saucy and emulsify the grated Parm & Romano. There was a handful of basil in there, too.
I had it with a spiny lobster tail, which was a treat. I added zucchini, red bell peppers and cherry tomatoes to the leftovers for a veg version.  I can see it working with all sorts of protein from leftover chicken to shrimp to grilled scallops or steak.  My favorite kind of recipe to play with!

[blue_dolphin]

The book has several pasta salad recipes and a guide for building your own pasta salad.  I’m not a huge pasta salad fan but I’d picked up a box of black pepper barilotti pasta at Trader Joe’s and thought it would be good in a pasta salad with salami so I tried the recipe for pasta salad with roasted red peppers, salami, mozzarella and croutons on p 285 of Six Seasons of Pasta. 

 

The recipe lightly dresses the pasta with vinegar and olive oil while it’s still warm, then adds more to dress the full salad. I’ve seen that done with potato salad but not with pasta though it makes sense. I had a jar of little cheese-stuffed red peppers (also from TJ's) that I quartered and threw in in place of the roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella. I added cooked zucchini and raw tomato that weren’t in the recipe. This book includes the same torn croutons recipe as in Six Seasons with instructions to let the salad sit for 15-30 min before serving so they can soak up some of the juices. A good call. 

 

 

 

Edited October 12 by blue_dolphin (log)

[Smithy]

@blue_dolphin, my first thought was that you were so painstaking as to coil all those bits of pasta. It appears, from the TJ's website, that black pepper barilotti pasta comes coiled as in the photo. (Whew!) How was the texture? I can imagine something that thick becoming gummy.

[blue_dolphin]

21 minutes ago, Smithy said:

@blue_dolphin, my first thought was that you were so painstaking as to coil all those bits of pasta. It appears, from the TJ's website, that black pepper barilotti pasta comes coiled as in the photo. (Whew!) How was the texture? I can imagine something that thick becoming gummy.

I can’t imagine rolling up each piece!  The texture of the pasta was good and the flavor was pleasantly peppery.  I suspect that the cooking time needs to be monitored carefully and the coils may unspool into limp noodles quickly if overcooked so I started tasting early and avoided that fate!

[FauxPas]

2 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

The recipe lightly dresses the pasta with vinegar and olive oil while it’s still warm, then adds more to dress the full salad. I’ve seen that done with potato salad but not with pasta though it makes sense.

 

This was a tip from Serious Eats for making better macaroni salad and it really worked! 

 

So, to infuse the pasta with maximum flavor, this recipe calls for adding the vinegar straight to the cooked macaroni before introducing the mayo-based dressing, not unlike Kenji's method of adding vinegar to boiled potatoes for potato salad. This extra step ensures that every squishy elbow is super tangy; on its own it tastes a little weird, but the whole thing becomes remarkably well-balanced once the creamy dressing is tossed into the mix.

 

https://www.seriouseats.com/tangy-creamy-macaroni-salad

[blue_dolphin]

Carbonara from Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden

I read that today is National Pasta Day here in the US so I thought I’d celebrate with this decadent treat.  I really like this method for carbonara, specifically tempering the eggs gently in the pan after the guanciale is cooked and before adding the pasta. I usually temper the eggs in a bowl placed over the pasta pot but using the pan seems more efficient. I also like the tongue-tingling amount of black pepper.  I read somewhere that spaghettoni was the best pasta for carbonara so that’s what I used and it is pretty good. 
Apparently, World Pasta Day is right around the corner on Oct 25 so expect to see more from this book then!

 

Edited October 17 by blue_dolphin (log)

[MaryIsobel]

30 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Carbonara from Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden

I read that today is National Pasta Day here in the US so I thought I’d celebrate with this decadent treat.  I really like this method for carbonara, specifically tempering the eggs gently in the pan after the guanciale is cooked and before adding the pasta. I usually temper the eggs in a bowl placed over the pasta pot but using the pan seems more efficient. I also like the tongue-tingling amount of black pepper.  I read somewhere that spaghettoni was the best pasta for carbonara so that’s what I used and it is pretty good. 
Apparently, World Pasta Day is right around the corner on Oct 25 so expect to see more from this book then!

 

Oh my! I could gobble that up very inelegantly right this minute and I just had lunch! Carbonara is probably my favourite pasta. I limit myself to a couple of times a year at home but it is also my test dish at an Italian restaurant that I haven't been to. I don't order if it says bacon - I will give it a chance with prosciutto and if it's guanciale, I'm getting it. A local place does a great one using guanciale - it's served with a raw yolk on top.

 

[blue_dolphin]

Pasta al limone with cream from Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden p 114.

This is another of the classics or “any season” recipes with a little lesson on working with cream-based sauces. I like that this version is all about the lemon. Other recipes in my books add other flavors - anchovy, nutmeg, basil, garlic, shallot, chile flakes - all good, but I appreciated the simplicity of this sauce.  He adds a generous amount of lemon zest early on to infuse into the cream but holds the lemon juice to the very end where it’s added off the heat to avoid a cooked lemon flavor. 
I reduced the amount of pasta and added snap peas and yellow bell pepper so I could call it a meal. 
 

Edited October 23 by blue_dolphin
Missing word (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Today I made the pappardelle and cabbage with whipped lemon ricotta and chile crisp on p 360.

The whipped lemon ricotta (separate recipe on p 35) is made with ricotta, preserved lemon paste and lemon agrumato oil. I took a stab at making the paste with salt preserved lemons I made a while back and it worked out OK. 
The cabbage gets cut into wedges, coated with olive oil, dotted with butter and roasted. 
In lieu of chile crisp, I used some chile morita salsa macha with peanuts from Taco Maria that I picked up recently. 
This was very good and should be fun to play around with different chile crisps as I’ve got several on hand. 
 

Edited 19 hours ago by blue_dolphin
To fix photo (log)

[Maison Rustique]

@blue_dolphin is the preserved lemon paste something you make (like pureed preserved lemon) or is it something you purchase? And I need to investigate lemon agrumato oil because I'm not familiar with that either! Feeling ignorant this morning...

[blue_dolphin]

3 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:

@blue_dolphin is the preserved lemon paste something you make (like pureed preserved lemon) or is it something you purchase? And I need to investigate lemon agrumato oil because I'm not familiar with that either! Feeling ignorant this morning...

Yes, preserved lemon paste is basically puréed preserved lemons. The book recommends the stuff from New York Shuk which he says is available online or in specialty stores.  I usually make my own preserved lemons so I looked up recipes for making the paste and did that. Some recipes say to rinse the lemons first, others say absolutely don’t rinse.  I made small batches each way and my unrinsed lemons made a ferociously salty paste so I used the rinsed version. I tend to be generous with the salt when I make the lemons! 
 

The lemon agrumato oil is made by crushing lemons along with the olives when they are milled. It’s pretty expensive but lovely, usually used as a finishing drizzle. I recently purchased this from Katz Farm here in California so that’s what I used. It’s delicious stuff. He recommends olio2go.com as a source for Italian brands.