The theme this sixth week of Tessa Kiros' recipes at I Heart Cooking Club is "In My Pasta Bowl..." More precisely, this is what was on the IHCC site for the week: "Get out your Tessa Kiros cookbooks and pick out a great pasta dish to savor this week." (Click here to go to site and check out the other pasta dishes that were made this week.)
This is a pasta loving household as you might know from reading the sheer number of pasta posts that appear on this blog regularly. I had no trouble locating the one I wanted to make in Tessa's book Twelve: A Tuscan Cookbook.
Olives and pasta...what's not to love? Absolutely nothing...this is delicious. All that salty briny olive goodness with lemon, garlic, parsley, cheese, and pasta, oh, yeah. (And, oh yeah, don't look for those anchovies in mine as I left them out completely, guys can taste those, no matter how carefully disguised they might be, and refuse to eat anything with anchovies in it.) Definitely repeat-worthy.
Serves 6
Ingredients:
3 ounces each of pitted, good quality, black and green olives
4Tablespoons of olive oil, plus a little more for serving
2 salt-packed anchovies, rinsed, cleaned, and filleted or 4 fillets in olive oil
2 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped
grated zest of one lemon
a small handful of freshly chopped parsley
1 lb 2 oz of short pasta such as penne, fusilli, or shells
1-1/2 cups grated hard ricotta or Parmesan cheese
Put a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Chop up the pitted olives or pulse puree into tiny pieces.
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the anchovies, mashing with a wooden spoon to melt them into the oil. Add the garlic, and just when it begins to sizzle, add the lemon zest and the olives. Saute for a few seconds and then remove from the heat and stir in the parsley.
Cook the pasta in the water following the packet instructions. Drain, reserving a cup of the cooking water, and toss the pasta into the olives. Add the water and a grinding of pepper and mix through. Sprinkle with the ricotta and serve immediately with a splash of olive oil or chili oil.
