Orecchiette all' Eero

An actual cooking post just to mix these things up. A receipt in the form of one of these things are not like the other:
A) Fancy cream from home-schooled local cows.
B) Fancy imported orecchiette.
C) Fancy locally-grown, pan-pipe-serenaded English peas.
D) Pinot Grigio
E) Junior Johnson's Country Ham Biscuit Pieces.
If you guessed E) you are correct. In the midst of a bunch of ingredients hand-raised by Hampshire College alumni, or lovingly imported from Italy, is a bolt of fat and salt right out of the Dirty, endorsed by a stock car legend, no less, and smuggled north of the Mason-Dixon by our pal Daniel.
The process is pretty straightforward. Boil pasta water. Shell peas -- you will want about 2 cups worth, shelled. Cut ham into pieces about the size of the nail on your pinkie. Brown the ham in a saucepan, add white wine to deglaze. (I used the PG that was open.) Reduce the wine, add cream to thicken (maybe 1/2 pint or a bit more -- I wasn't making a vaccine, so I did not measure). Start the pasta. When the cream is about the consistency you want, and the pasta is ready, add the peas and just allow to warm through. Toss the sauce with the pasta, and serve. When you combine the sauce and the pasta, you will see why it is called what it is. The peas, some of them anyway, nestle into the hollows of the orecchiette, creating an effect very much like David Frost sitting in one of the ball chairs that Aario Eero designed.* This is a keeper -- I look forward to trying it with different types of country ham, but I do not think it would be worth making without fresh peas to hand. I did try this once before, and was well into the receipt before I realized there was no orecchiette in the house -- I made it with twists, and it was not nearly as good.

*This image is in The Best of Life, but evidently not in the internets.

Comments

[Skeen]

Agreed the fresh peas are best, but the Cascadian Farms peas aren't too bad, either, as long as you don't cook them too long (just plunge for a minute into boiling water).