Recipe: No butter or cream in flavorful side dish
Light, flavorful and fast: Lemon pasta, made here with fresh linguine. Kathy Morrison
Anything bright and fresh is welcome these days, as winter drags into its last weeks. I found this lively citrus pasta dish while looking for yet another way to use my lemon horde.
Made without cream or butter, the pasta beautifully complements a main such as grilled fish, crab cakes or baked chicken. But I could see it as an excellent vegetarian main course -- or vegan if you leave out the Parmesan cheese.
I recommend using fresh linguine (found in the refrigerated case at grocery stores) but it also will work with dried pasta such as angel hair or thin spaghetti. The fresh packages are usually 9 ounces, not 12, so either use part of a second package, or just cook the one package -- the sauce generally will not have to be adjusted.
I've made this dish using just Meyer lemons, but I prefer the blend of zest from one Meyer lemon and one tart lemon. For juice I used the golden Meyer. And don't skimp on the garlic or the parsley. They both add depth to the sauce.
One more note: This recipe moves quickly once you start cooking, so it's important to have everything grated, chopped, etc., ahead of time and at hand.
Fresh lemon pasta
Serve 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main
Ingredients:
9 to 12 ounces long pasta, either fresh or dried (linguine seems to work best)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons good olive oil
6 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes, or to taste
Zest from 2 medium to large lemons (about 2 tablespoons), Meyers or tart or both
Juice from the larger lemon, about 1/4 cup
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Instructions:
Put a 4-quart pot of water on to boil for the pasta. When it starts boiling, add a dash of salt, and the pasta. If it's fresh, it will cook quickly, so be prepared. Cook pasta to al dente doneness, and save out 1 cup of cooking water before draining the pasta gently and setting it aside.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil on medium heat, then add the minced garlic and the red pepper flakes. Cook until fragrant, stirring, no more than 1 minute. Add the lemon juice and 1/4 cup reserved pasta water, then add the cooked pasta and toss, coating the pasta.
Remove the skillet from the heat and add the parsley and lemon zest to the pasta, tossing to distribute well. Add the Parmesan and, if needed, more pasta water to get the strands well-coated. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve immediately with more Parmesan and an optional drizzle of olive oil.
Here are a few more of our citrus-with-pasta recipes:
Chill out with lemony pasta salad
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Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* 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. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* 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.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. 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.
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