Recipe: Pasta with green garlic and baby spinach
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Green garlic stalks, foreground, look similar to scallions, in back, and can be
used in similar ways. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)
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Spring brings so many wonderful vegetables into the farmers markets, but some of them have a short season, so I try to enjoy them while I can.
One of those is green garlic, which is simply garlic harvested before the cloves have fully formed and while the tops are still green.
In the market, the stalks look like overachieving scallions, maybe with a slightly more bulbous end, depending on when it was harvested. The stalks can be chopped or minced to be used like scallions, too, but with a creamier garlic flavor. As a bonus, the papery skin hasn't formed on the cloves yet, so there's no peeling required.
The recipe here makes use of that lovely garlic flavor -- much milder than an equivalent amount of regular garlic would be. (You might not be able to scare off any vampires with it, however.) It is very loosely based on a New York Times dish, one of several pasta recipes they've printed that celebrate spring vegetables. There's not a tomato in any of them -- all very green.
This cooks quickly, so it's best to have all the ingredients chopped and ready before you start.
A note about anchovy paste: It's made from fish, sure, but won't add a fishy taste to the pasta. It mellows the other ingredients and lends the dish umami, the savory "fifth flavor" that chefs love. To make this dish vegetarian, substitute 4 dried porcini mushrooms, plumped with a couple tablespoons hot water, and then minced. You might need to add a little extra salt, too.
Pasta with green garlic and baby spinach
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Kosher salt
8 ounces thin spaghetti or linguine
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 teaspoons anchovy paste, or 4 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
2 large or 3 smaller stalks green garlic, trimmed and chopped, including most of the green part
2 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons flat parsley, chopped
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 to 3 tablespoons half and half, heavy cream or vegetable broth
5 ounces baby spinach leaves, about 7 cups
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste, optional
Instructions:
Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in a large pot. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, then the pasta, stir, and cook until almost al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking water, then drain the pasta briefly, and return it to the cooking pot off the heat.
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Spring flavors blend in this easy pasta dish. |
While the pasta is cooking, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large sauté pan. Stir the anchovy paste into the warm oil, then add the garlic, scallions, parsley and red pepper flakes. Cook over medium-high heat for no more than 3 minutes. Add the remaining olive oil. Turn down the heat to medium and gently stir in the half and half, cream or broth. Add some of the cooking water if the mixture is still pretty thick -- the consistency should be closer to sauce than paste.
Pile the spinach leaves on top of the mixture in the pan, then squeeze the lemon juice over the leaves, and grind some black pepper over it all. Stir until the spinach is wilted, 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the cooked pasta to the pan, stirring, for about 1 minute. Sprinkle Parmesan over all, if using, and some more ground pepper. Serve immediately.
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Food in My Back Yard Series
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April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?
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April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
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Garden Checklist for week of May 11
Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)
* Plant dahlia tubers.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch-to-1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.
* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.