Erica De Mane

Still life with hand and red bell pepper, Pablo Secca

Recipe below: Fettuccine with Red Pepper Purée, Chickpeas, and a Touch of Honey

While thinking up ideas for Pasta Improvvisata, my first book, I came around to a truth about my cooking: No matter how creative I try to get, departing from classics, dreaming up stuff my grandmother would have found unacceptable, I always stay within the palate of Southern Italy. It isn’t a conscious decision. It’s just where things fall. It keeps me evolving but still connected to my heritage. It’s a good place for me to be.

One of the recipes in Pasta Improvvisata was a penne with a puréed sweet pepper and basil sauce. It was something I’d never had before. My family had made pasta with bell peppers, but always just sliced up and sautéed, usually along with a little tomato, and maybe a few anchovies thrown in. It was a good dish, to be sure, but my puréed version had a suaveness to it, an elegance, that told me to reach for fettuccine, not rigatoni. Humble ingredients gone fancy.

Right now, at September’s end, the best sweet and hot peppers are in my local markets. And the jolt of warm weather has made them better than I expected. Even the usually solid green Italian frying peppers have grown rich and red. And jalapeños, too, have been allowed to go all crimson, something I’d never see in a grocery store. Big growers never let those beauties go the distance.

Last week at the Union Square Greenmarket.

I decided to revisit this pepper purée concept, but with a new take, coming up with a revamping of pasta e fagioli. I used a mix of red bell and red Italian frying peppers and one red jalapeño. Add a Jimmy Nardello if you can find one, the sweet Southern Italian import that’s so popular with Italian Americans; I’m going to try growing it next year. I added chickpeas and a Sicilian mix of flavors, including cinnamon, mint, and a hint of honey, which you’ll taste only far in the background, so the dish is not openly sweet.

I’m pretty sure my grandmother would have found the result perplexing, and she’d have muttered her typical response, “This tastes different,” meaning it was foreign and she wouldn’t eat it. Ah, so be it. She didn’t live long enough to see how chefs in Southern Italy have pushed forward with their cuisine, using traditional ingredients in new ways. But luckily I have, and I love it.

Fettuccine with Red Pepper Purée, Chickpeas, and a Touch of Honey

(Serves 5 as a first course)

6 very ripe, sweet red peppers, bells or frying or a mix
1 red jalapeño pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
The leaves from about 6 large sprigs of thyme, chopped
Salt
¼ cup dry vermouth
¾ cup homemade or good quality prepared chicken broth (or broth from your chickpeas)
The grated zest from 1 lemon
1½ cups cooked chickpeas, preferably homemade*
1 pound fettuccine
1 teaspoon runny wildflower honey (a mild one such as orange blossom is a good choice)
A handful of spearmint leaves, cut into thin strips if large, left whole if small
A chunk of Fiore Sardo (Sardinian pecorino) cheese

(*I would cook up a bag of chickpeas, use a cup or so for this pasta, and save the rest for a salad or to include in a main course or to use to make a more traditional pasta con ceci.)

Put all the peppers on a sheet pan, and place the pan under a broiler, turning the peppers often until they’re charred all over. Peel and seed them, and cut them into large chunks. (I like this way of roasting peppers for a puréed pasta sauce, as the skins slip off easily, leaving very little of the black bits you’d get from grilling.)

In a large skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium flame. Add the shallots, and sauté until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, the roasted peppers, the allspice, cinnamon, thyme, and a sprinkling of salt, and sauté until everything is soft and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the vermouth, and let it boil for about a minute. Add the chicken broth and lemon zest, and simmer, uncovered, for another 2 minutes, just to blend all the flavors. Pour everything into the bowl of a food processor, and purée until smooth.

In a same pan you cooked the peppers in, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium flame. When hot, add the chickpeas, seasoning with a little salt. Sauté until they just become lightly crisp, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile bring a big pot of pasta cooking water to a boil, and salt it generously. Add the fettuccine.

Add the pepper purée back to the pan with the chickpeas, and reheat it gently. Add the honey, letting it melt into the sauce.

When the fettuccine is tender, drain it, saving about ½ cup of the cooking water.

Pour the fettuccine into a large pasta serving bowl. Add the pepper sauce, and toss, drizzling in a little pasta cooking water, if needed, to loosen the texture. Grate on some Fiore Sardo, and give it a another quick toss. Garnish with the mint leaves. Serve right away, bringing the rest of the cheese to the table.