May 29, 2008 – 8:18 pm
This was dinner a while back. I cannot tell you how good this was. I know, I know, this is coming from a college student, and trust me, I used CREAM CHEESE for part of this because I didn’t have heavy whipping cream. You can’t get a deliciously sweet and leek-filled tangle of pasta from a jar of Ragu. In fact, I’ve never had a good cream sauce out of a jar or a tub.
Let’s look at the main offender:
Just looking at this, you know already that this won’t cut it. Not for your creamy silken pasta dreams, noooo.
RECIPE:
2 leeks, only the white parts, cut off the stem part with the baby blond hairs, rinse in colander, CHOPPED HOWEVA YOU LIKE IT
1 tbsp butta, also whatever kind you want
1 cup of reserved hot water that the pasta has been fully cooked in
3 tbsp of Philadelphia cream cheese, or Schnucks, if you are feeling cheap
Chopped parsley, basil, oregano, maybe mint, but I can’t help you if it sucks with the mint, that chameleon she-devil
Salt
Peppa
Start boiling some water in a pot. A big pot. Full of water. Crank it. The heat, that is. Not the water.
Meanwhile, start chopping some leeks, or chives, or lil babeh wild onions, or maybe just a sweet onion. I’m not really particular on this part. Once they’ve been chopped, melt a tablespoon of butter or olive oil over medium, on the low side of things (butter will taste better but Oprah will come after you, bottle of Bertolli grasped in her firm handshake).
Toss in your leeks. Stand over the skillet worriedly, poking at them with a spatula. Put some linguine in the boiling water. Maybe half the box. I used DeCecco; they make these skid marks in the pasta that the sauce clings to, so that’s… pretty much what you want. Put your timer on for whatever it says to.
Put about 1/4 tsp of salt and a sprinkling of pepper on yer leeks. Once your pasta is halfway cooked, toss in cubes (or break it up with your fingers) of cream cheese. Just trust me on this. I treat cream cheese as solidified cream, although I’m sure butter has already been promoted to vice president of that company a couple hundred years ago.
Whatever, what is the point of keeping those dumb little half pints of cream around all the time like those giant milk chugs of whole milk, just to make bechamel or alfredo or a roux? Oooooooh, Larousse Gastronamique is going to hunt me down, trailing Oprah in its fat little book cover with the meat pies on it.
Anyway, to the point. Keep stirring your leeks and cream cheese, this may take a while for the cream cheese to break down. You’ll probably need to add more salt and pepper. Maybe some red pepper flakes, just to keep things hot ‘n spicy with your LTR, y’know?
When the pasta is done, stick something like one of your giant coffee mugs down into the pasta water and so you have starchy water. You know, to loosen up the sauce a bit. Drain the pasta, toss the water little by little (maybe 1/4 cup at a time) into the sauce so it gets nice and easy like your roommate from French boarding school. Stick yer pasta in the skillet. Keep that heat on, maybe on to low. Toss with tongs. Or your bare clean hands, if you’ve got the asbestos fingers like my mother. Taste for salt and pepper.
Put it in a giant bowl. Sprinkle with chiffonade (roll the fresh herb up into a cigarillo of sorts and cut it hamburger style, not hot dog) herb of your choosing. Turn on America’s Next Top Model, and make sure you do a picture-in-picture with Food Network. Eat it all. Pat your stomach, because you’ve just given it the biggest hug.
Posted in Food | No Comments »
Check it out.
