Fideos with Pesto and Tomato-basil Cream, Angel hair with white truffles
I love easy, re-usable food and this time a year (if you’d not yet noticed), I love pasta. The tomato basil cream sauce from a few posts ago made its way into a plate of fideo pasta to which I added some pesto, basil oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and topped with a few leaves of fresh oregano. This was lunch for Zoe and I (she skipped the raw oregano leaves, but insisted on an extra pinch of cheese). Rich, warm, and comforting.
Fideos are a great pasta if you’re on a budget. They’re usually in the Mexican/South American section of the grocery store and a package is around $0.50 to $0.75, the yield of which will constitute a meal for 3 and some leftovers (unless someone’s really hungry, I suppose). The sauce — which is roughly detailed a few posts ago — will keep for a week or so and a quick warming brings it right up to snuff. The pesto was added cold and was purchased at Central Market where it’s made on site (though I’ve used a few good pestos that were jarred).
We got taken on a wild detour on Sunday due to the marathon that was blocking off half of the town. Instead of getting to
Central Market like we normally do, we ended up downtown at Whole Foods, where a treasure of things were waiting — grass fed beef, edible flowers, spicy baby basil, and … and … and… white truffles!
Unfortunately not the kind from alba which would have broken our bank (they’re currently running around $3000/lb), but the new Oregon truffles which I have to say are not all that bad. The price is certainly better, but still pretty steep (They were around $40/oz) and we made off with enough for a dish or two if used sparingly.
So how to highlight the taste of white truffle? Non-invasive pasta? Check. Mild garlic/butter sauce with shallot? Check. Bit of a white win reduction in that? check. Truffle shaver? Crap, nope, have to rely on my knife skills (for whatever that’s worth; not much on the going market I’m afraid).
So simply — angel hair pasta, a white wine/garlic/butter reduction sauce, a bit of cheese and the basil, and then shavings of the white truffle. I savored every bite.
No, they’re not alba truffles, but they’re damn good and I’m going to keep buying them every time they have them. Call it a new addiction, but I likes me some fungus.