Yesterday the NYT published a recipe for caramelized shallot pasta, and I said to myself, "I am cooking this for dinner tonight." It is not hard: in a nice heavy-bottomed pan, caramelize six thinly sliced fat shallots by cooking them in olive oil for 15-20 minutes. The author wants you to put in 5 cloves of sliced garlic at the beginning of the cooking time, but I added mine midway through. I prefer browned shallots to browned garlic. Take a teaspoon of red pepper flakes and A WHOLE CAN of savory umami goodness (a.k.a. anchovies); drain and stir through the hot fat until they dissolve into a golden cloud of flavor enhancement. You don't even have to chop them. Have your anchovies mostly disappeared into the fat? Scrape a 6-ounce can of tomato paste into the pan and cook it for a couple of minutes. (The author cautioned me to stir it constantly so it wouldn't scorch, but things caramelize more readily if you're not stirring them constantly, and caramelized tomato paste is a blessing from the Lord. I did not stir constantly.)
Leave half of this mixture in your nice heavy-bottomed pan and save the other half for another use, such as smearing it on your face so you can bathe in that aroma of JOY and DELIGHT and did I mention UMAMI? (Or putting it on your eggs, one of the two.) While your salted water comes to a boil and your pasta starts cooking*, chop the heck out of a small bunch of parsley and another clove of garlic and put them on the table in a small bowl. When the pasta is a notch more al dente than your preferred degree of al dente, scoop up a generous mugful of the cooking water and stir it into the remaining shallot/anchovy/tomato paste mixture. Drain the pasta and let it finish cooking in the sauce. Sprinkle with garlic-parsley at the table.
Serve with a nice capacious utensil, such as a shovel, because you will want to get a lot of it into your mouth very quickly.
*The recipe calls for 10 ounces of pasta. If you are making a pound, scale up the sauce/pasta water quantities -- only scoop out a quarter of the sauce to save for later, and toss in another half-mugful of water.
Recent Comments