How would fusilli Jerry prepare this pasta for Festivus?
December 18, 2016 8:16 AM Subscribe
I have a bag of chestnut fusilli pasta that I’d like to use for an x-mas brunch, and am coming up empty on how to tastily prepare it. Can the hive mind suggest any vegetarian ways of serving it that will be a crowd pleaser? What kinds of sauce and/or vegetables go well with chestnut?
In my experience things made with chestnut flour don't really taste of chestnuts all that much, so you should cook a couple pieces to taste them if you haven't had this specific thing before.
I think pesto and roasted peppers go wonderfully with whole grain pasta and think it would be nice with the similarly hearty taste of chestnut pasta. As a bonus it's green and red!
I like roasted chestnuts with cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower. This cauliflower and saffron pasta recipe is fantastic and I've made variations on it a bunch of times. I do capers instead of anchovies because I have them around the house, always use currants because raisins are icky, varying ratios of pretty much everything and different pasta shapes. Pretty much every version has been scrumptious. For broccoli I like whole wheat pasta, lots of garlic and pepper flakes, and a good olive oil with some quickly sizzled oregano.
posted by Mizu at 8:54 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think pesto and roasted peppers go wonderfully with whole grain pasta and think it would be nice with the similarly hearty taste of chestnut pasta. As a bonus it's green and red!
I like roasted chestnuts with cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower. This cauliflower and saffron pasta recipe is fantastic and I've made variations on it a bunch of times. I do capers instead of anchovies because I have them around the house, always use currants because raisins are icky, varying ratios of pretty much everything and different pasta shapes. Pretty much every version has been scrumptious. For broccoli I like whole wheat pasta, lots of garlic and pepper flakes, and a good olive oil with some quickly sizzled oregano.
posted by Mizu at 8:54 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Is it made with chestnut flour, or is it chestnut-flavored? If it is the latter, winter vegetables compliment chestnuts well: squash, root vegetables. I had a very fancy pasta dish at a restaurant once with chestnuts, roasted acorn and butternut squash, over mashed rutabaga and parsnip puree, with a sage brown butter sauce. Good grated parm over the top. Now I'm salivating; I think I know where I'm going for dinner tonight!
posted by juniperesque at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by juniperesque at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Blue Apron recently sent us a delicious and easy pasta dish with chestnut breadcrumbs on top. In that case, the pasta itself was pumpkin flavored. But in terms of figuring out what other elements work in a pasta dish with chestnut, that dish also has cabbage, mascarpone, parmesan, and red pepper flakes. The whole recipe, which you could adapt, is here.
posted by daisyace at 9:51 AM on December 18, 2016
posted by daisyace at 9:51 AM on December 18, 2016
Best answer: What I always make with fusilli of any kind:
Put on your pasta water.
Cut up a bunch of rapini, a bunch of mushrooms, and finely shirr about six garlic cloves (less if it's juicy, more if it's a little dried out). Take a utensil like a big flat-bottomed wok or saute pan, lightly colour half the garlic in olive oil (don't let it go dark), then put in the mushrooms and cook them, and then take them out. Add more oil and the rest of the garlic and sauté the rapini in it. A pinch of dried tarragon goes well with this. It will cook down a lot in a few minutes. By then the pasta water should be boiling. Salt it if you do, and put the pasta in. With something special like this chestnut pasta pay particular attention to the cooking time given.
Grate a bunch of cheese, ideally real parm but whatever you like, and crack a couple of eggs into a bowl, giving them a medium stir but not a beating. Given they won't be heavily cooked you might get good-quality organic ones for this purpose.
Put both the rapini and mushrooms into the pan and keep them warm while the pasta cooks, then drain it.
Now you want to move a little quickly. Using your best spatula, mix the mushrooms, rapini and fusilli together, adding the egg first, distributing it, then adding the cheese so it also distributes. You want to keep the pan at a medium temp where the cheese/egg mixtures coalesces into a sauce distributed around the whole mixture.
This could be made with regular broccoli but I strongly recommend the earthiness and slight bitterness of rapini to complement the special pasta.
Serve with plenty of unsubtle red wine.
I invented this dish and will now call it Fusilli Festivo.
posted by zadcat at 10:18 AM on December 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
Put on your pasta water.
Cut up a bunch of rapini, a bunch of mushrooms, and finely shirr about six garlic cloves (less if it's juicy, more if it's a little dried out). Take a utensil like a big flat-bottomed wok or saute pan, lightly colour half the garlic in olive oil (don't let it go dark), then put in the mushrooms and cook them, and then take them out. Add more oil and the rest of the garlic and sauté the rapini in it. A pinch of dried tarragon goes well with this. It will cook down a lot in a few minutes. By then the pasta water should be boiling. Salt it if you do, and put the pasta in. With something special like this chestnut pasta pay particular attention to the cooking time given.
Grate a bunch of cheese, ideally real parm but whatever you like, and crack a couple of eggs into a bowl, giving them a medium stir but not a beating. Given they won't be heavily cooked you might get good-quality organic ones for this purpose.
Put both the rapini and mushrooms into the pan and keep them warm while the pasta cooks, then drain it.
Now you want to move a little quickly. Using your best spatula, mix the mushrooms, rapini and fusilli together, adding the egg first, distributing it, then adding the cheese so it also distributes. You want to keep the pan at a medium temp where the cheese/egg mixtures coalesces into a sauce distributed around the whole mixture.
This could be made with regular broccoli but I strongly recommend the earthiness and slight bitterness of rapini to complement the special pasta.
Serve with plenty of unsubtle red wine.
I invented this dish and will now call it Fusilli Festivo.
posted by zadcat at 10:18 AM on December 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
I came to say what Mizu said: unfortunately chestnut flour doesn't taste of chestnuts, so check your fusilli before assuming chestnut flavor as a base.
posted by anadem at 10:19 AM on December 18, 2016
posted by anadem at 10:19 AM on December 18, 2016
Oh, I should've mentioned also: plenty of cracked black pepper in there.
posted by zadcat at 11:07 AM on December 18, 2016
posted by zadcat at 11:07 AM on December 18, 2016
Even if it's pasta made of chestnut flour rather than chestnut flavored, I would still go more with Tuscan and northern Italian flavors like mushroom and sage, and less towards tomato and basil and lots of garlic.
Chestnut flour is a Tuscan thing, and things made from it will taste best with flavors from that part of the world. If it helps you wrap your head around it, think up a "forest" pasta.
posted by Sara C. at 11:13 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Chestnut flour is a Tuscan thing, and things made from it will taste best with flavors from that part of the world. If it helps you wrap your head around it, think up a "forest" pasta.
posted by Sara C. at 11:13 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by BibiRose at 8:34 AM on December 18, 2016 [2 favorites]