I am closely monitoring my rhubarb patch, which is only just starting to push up what may eventually be a stalk or two. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying dishes that taste bright and fresh even if they rely on grocery-store ingredients.
One of my favorite such dishes is a recipe I was given by my friend Grad. Grad, whose full name is Linda Gradishar Phipps, lives in Savannah, Georgia.
One of my favorite “grocery-store meals” comes from a recipe shared by my friend Grad —Linda Gradishar Phipps — who lives in Savannah, Georgia. We met over the internet when she read one of my blogs and I, curious about her, subscribed to her blog, “The Curious Reader.”
As that title indicates, Grad loves books — the reactions they evoke in the mind and the heart, but also their physicality: what they look like, who wrote them and (in the case of older books) who read them before she did.
She reads fiction, nonfiction, poetry … pretty much everything. She also devours cookbooks and is frequently inspired by food.
She sent me this recipe more than a decade ago. I love its adaptability and also its flavor.
She calls the recipe her Pantry Pasta because it uses ingredients she usually has on hand.
Grad’s pantry seems a bit more exotic than mine. I don’t usually have bucatini in the house. I probably should keep it on hand, if the reactions of the people at the party to which I brought it last week are any indication — they loved this dish.
Bucatini, in case you didn’t know, is a long, hollow pasta. In Italian, “buco” (the male counterpart of the feminine “buca”) means “hole.”
The hole in the center of this starch is its secret weapon. Bucatini can absorb sauce both inside and outside, making it the ideal pasta for Grad’s dish, which is rich in umami and oil.
Alex Delaney wrote glowingly of this shape in “Bon Appétit” magazine. The article’s headline was “Bucatini is the best long pasta there ever was or will be.”
Grad says one can also use perciatelli, a bucatini lookalike, if one cannot find bucatini in the store. Some people say the two pastas are identical, while others believe that perciatelli tends to be slightly thinner, and its hole narrower. Happily for me, I found two brands of bucatini, so I didn’t have to worry about substitutions.
Here is what Grad had to say about the pasta:
“This is one of those things my eldest son loved so much when I made it years ago, he now makes it himself, adding what he has on hand.
“Rather than a recipe, I think of it more a road map that allows side trips. Leftover shrimp? In it goes. Clam juice? Why not? A little bit of chicken broth left over from yesterday? Absolutely.
“How about that leftover asparagus? Or those little cherry tomatoes you want to use? You get my drift. As far as I’m concerned, as long as you have the anchovies, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, pepper flakes, olive oil and perciatelli (or bucatini) you can’t go wrong,” she wrote.
“It is even better the next day, and I love it cold! Keep the basic ingredients in your pantry (along with a nice bottle of red wine) and you are ready for any foodie emergency — or for when you need a hug.”
Given Grad’s injunction to add ingredients as desired, when I made the pasta last week I added blanched asparagus and pieces of sweet bell pepper.
I grabbed the wrong jar in the sun-dried tomato section of the supermarket and ended up with sun-dried tomato pesto. I only noticed my mistake while cooking. I wasn’t about to go back to the store at that point … but the pesto worked beautifully, upping the cheese flavor of the dish.
Another time, I might throw in some Greek olives, and I would probably add even more asparagus and bell pepper. In mid-summer I would take advantage of tiny zucchini; in the fall, fresh broccoli. Everyone loved the dish as it was, however.
Grad’s Pantry Pasta
Ingredients:
1 pound bucatini or perciatelli (if both are available, Grad prefers the bucatini, but either is fine)
salt to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced (I used a shallot)
6 peeled garlic cloves, minced (or more)
1 red or yellow bell pepper, diced (added by me)
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes, or more if you like things hot
3 to 4 flat anchovies packed in oil (I chopped these up)
1 6-ounce jar marinated artichoke hearts
1 4-ounce jar sun-dried tomatoes in oil (or 1 6-ounce jar sun-dried tomato pesto)
1-1/2 cups blanched asparagus pieces (my addition)
2 tablespoons of oil from the sun-dried tomatoes (if you use the pesto, just pop in the whole jar)
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to taste
a little chopped parsley for color (optional; I added this)
Instructions:
Set the pasta to boil in a larget pot of salted water. Meanwhile, pour the olive oil into a large skillet. Sauté the onion gently until it is soft. Add the garlic and bell pepper; cook gently until they soften as well. Try not to brown the garlic.
Add the chopped anchovies and cook gently until they begin to disappear into the other ingredients. Sprinkle in the pepper flakes and heat them for a minute or so.
Drain the artichokes, reserving the marinade. Slice them thickly, and add them to the skillet. Slice the sun-dried tomatoes into thin strips, and add them to the skillet with 2 tablespoons of the oil in which they were packed. Again, if you use the pesto, just pop it all in. Cook gently.
Stir in the asparagus pieces. Taste and sprinkle with a little salt if needed. (I just waited and had salt available at the table since people like differing degrees of saltiness.)
Add a little of the artichoke marinade to the mixture. Taste and correct seasonings. Add 1 cup of pasta cooking water, and bring the mixture to a boil to reduce it slightly
When the pasta is al dente, take it out of the water with a pasta fork and add it to the skillet to finish cooking. Toss everything together with tongs.
If you think you need more moisture, add a little pasta water, one ladle at a time, tossing between additions, until the mixture is a nice saucy consistency. Take it off the heat, and sprinkle cheese on top. Add the parsley if you are using it.
Serves 4 to 6 as a main course or at least 12 at a pot-luck party.
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.