Erica De Mane

Recipe below: Penne with Peas, Watercress, and Spring Garlic

Spring peas sautéed with delicate lettuce was a highbrow dish in seventeenth-century France, where garden peas were all the rage. It was especially popular with the ladies. The combo is still served in France. When I first heard about peas with lettuce, I found  it odd (why would anyone cook  lettuce?) but also alluring. Certain food pairings that I’ve come across in my studies or just in life have had a strong pull, a tug of the exotic. They’ve gotten embedded in my brain, filed away as beautifully foreign, meaning, I guess, not Southern Italian. Radishes with butter. Pork with prunes. Manchego with quince. Peas with lettuce. Peculiar in concept, but all have made perfect sense once I tasted them.

So here’s peas cooked with Bibb lettuce, a green so delicate that it melts almost into a slime at the slightest touch of heat. As it turns out, that’s a good sort of slime, and it makes for a well-balanced dish, with back tastes of both sweet and bitter. There’s a reason for its longevity.

I played around with this spring pairing, looking to fit it more neatly into my Italian world, and came up with, what else, a pasta dish. I first tried the recipe with Boston lettuce (basically the same as Bibb), cutting it into chiffonade and wilting it into the pasta. I wasn’t crazy about the mouth feel or the mushy look of the result, and the sturdy pasta threw off the naturally delicate balance. I then tried romaine, which looked better, but I didn’t love the taste (I don’t like the dulled-out taste of romaine in much of anything, even in Caesar salad).  Arugula? Too strong against the peas. I finally settled on watercress. I like its unique gentle bitterness, and the dark green of the cress against the lighter green of the peas tosses up nicely with penne.  Pasta e piselli, a classic, but this time with lettuce. Spring is here, finally.

Penne with Peas, Watercress, and Spring Garlic

(Serves 6 a first course)

2 cups shelled peas (from about 1½ pounds of peas in their pods, and save a handful of the pods)
2 cups light chicken broth
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
A  1/4-inch round of pancetta, well chopped
Butter
1  large spring onion, chopped, including the tender green stem
1 stalk spring garlic, chopped, leaving behind any tough part
A few big thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
A few big scrapings of nutmeg
Black pepper
A splash of dry marsala
1 pound penne
2 bunches watercress, well stemmed
A chunk of Montasio or Piave cheese

Pull out a medium-size pot and put the reserved pea pods in it. Pour on the chicken broth, and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down, and let it simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes. Strain the broth into a cup or a small bowl. It should have a gentle sweet pea aroma.

Set up a pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add salt. Drop in the penne.

Get out a large sauté pan, and set it over medium heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil and the pancetta, and sauté until crisp. Add the onion, garlic, thyme, and nutmeg, and season with salt and black pepper. Let it all soften and grow fragrant. Now add the peas, turning them around in the soffritto for a minute or so. Add the splash of Marsala, and let it bubble away. Add the chicken broth, and cook until the peas are just tender, about 4 minutes. Turn off the heat, and add 2 tablespoons of butter, stirring it in.

When the penne is al dente, drain it, and add it to the pan with the peas. Toss it all quickly over low heat until everything is well blended.

Pour the penne into a big pasta bowl. Scatter on the watercress. Add a little more salt and black pepper and a few big gratings of the cheese. Toss. The heat of the pasta will lightly wilt the watercress. Serve right away, bringing the rest of the cheese to the table.

And here’s a little video to go with it: