206 – Pasta Primavera

Pasta Primavera is a classic American dish from the mid 1970’s that enjoyed incredible popularity in restaurants and homes for several years, and then it was gone. It’s made a bit of a come back so we’re bringing it to you, enjoy!

To skip ahead to the recipe, go to 15:33

Written Recipe: bit.ly/marymacpastaprimavera

[Music] hello and welcome to in the kitchen with Mary Mac today we’re going to bring you a recipe for pasta Prima Vera originally known as spaghetti Alo Prima Vera this is a classic American recipe from the 1970s it doesn’t sound like a classic American recipe from the 19 7s it sounds like some really old Italian recipe that people have been making for 200 years but that is not the case this recipe was created by an American restaurant whose name was Serio machion and he was an owner of a restaurant called lirk a French restaurant in New York City this restaurant opened in like 1974 so sometime after that he says he thinks it was in 75 he was on vacation with a group of friends in Nova Scotia and he developed this recipe this thing was insanely popular in New York City in the 70s and probably I would say into the 80s it also became insanely popular across the country at that time because Craig Clayborn of the New York Times wrote about it in his column and then posted a recipe for it and then it ended up in a cookbook that he did and other cookbooks and it just blew up probably I would say due to the nature of the recipe probably because it was something that home Cooks could actually manage even though the original recipe was like really well I okay I won’t say complicated but it had a lot of steps and it might seem daunting to look at it this uh pasta well it was actually like I said it was called spaghetti ala Prima Vera I was kind of laughing in talking to some friends and then reading some posts from an Italian cooking site that I’m on when I was young and I would say like in the 60s and 70s you just called it was just spaghetti like people didn’t say pasta you didn’t hear that term in the United States that I can gather from the people that I’ve talked to you were having spaghetti for supper in the 70s late 60s early 7s things were very like beef was very expensive and people were trying to save money so spaghetti really became popular in the menus of American households because you could make spaghetti several different ways and it was pretty cheap and it went a long way you know you could cook a pound of spaghetti put whatever on it and it was good people liked it and it went a long way fed a lot of people so spaghetti recipes were hot well this recipe it was like an alfredo it was heavier than an alfredo but it was very similar to an alfredo with sauteed vegetables in it which I would say is probably why it became very popular and I think it was really popular even into the 90s because I can remember getting it at stores that had like a local restaurant freezer section one of the local places where we live used to always have Pasta Prima Vera in the freezer section at some point it disappeared and I’m going to say pretty much fell from popularity as fast as it Rose to popularity some people blame it on the richness of the sauce because the original recipe called for three cups of heavy cream in the sauce which is a lot of cream I mean that is a lot of cream so I think that may have been some of it and you have to think like in the ’90s people were beginning to watch their calorie intake in general their fat intake like it became somewhat fashionable you know to lighten all these recipes so I’m pretty sure that people said hey this already has a bunch of spaghetti in it why are we going to you know and they just cut it Loose they just let it go which is odd to me because it’s it can be such a good I mean it’s a good recipe it’s a good meal it’s very tasty you can put in what you have or make it however you want you can easily make it your own so I don’t really understand that but even Alfredo’s kind of fell out of favor for a while like basically you probably would say like fetuccini Alfredo that’s generally something that was on a lot of menus that kind of is made a comeback too probably because they’re seasoning it different which I often find to be very funny but one of the things that I just love to see on a menu is a Cajun fetuccini Alfredo because that I don’t know who came up with that combo it’s good but it doesn’t seem like it should go together [Laughter] so you know you have like chicken alfredo and stuff like that there’s a lot that you can do with an alfredo sauce but even an alfredo sauce some people do use cream in those but they’re not intended to have cream in them so this whole thing is probably I would say probably somebody said hey I can make you know I can make an alfredo sauce or whatever and we’ll do this to it and that may be how it came together because there are as many stories about the origins of this recipe as as there are ingredients that you can put in this recipe they’re all basically the same location the same era the same people but uh one story I read said that they were basically rummaging in the refrigerator and these are the items that they found to make something with and I thought I don’t know about that that’s a highly unusual group of ingredients to just turn up in a refrigerator so I I don’t know we’ll see about that here’s the story that I have this came from Sav magazine and it’s talking to actually uh Sirio machion one of the owners it says co-owner of lirk restaurant in New York City now remember Mr machion is Italian and he’s owning a French restaurant this is what he says about this recipe I believe it started in 1975 when I visited Prince Edward Island with a number of colleagues including Craig Clayborn of the New York Times to eat we had Lobster and wild boar after a week of this everyone said can we have some pasta I set out to make two dishes one with vegetables and one Alfredo style but in the end I mixed it all together vegetables with spaghetti and cream after Clayborne wrote about it in the times everybody started coming to lirk and asking for spaghetti ala Prima Vera but my French chef said you want to do spaghetti I don’t want spaghetti in my kitchen I didn’t want a chist so I decided to prepare it in the dining room on a cart table side it looked nice and it tasted nice we’ve never put it on the menu but people still ask for it and this is his own words from sever magazine so this was the recipe that was with the interview this is pretty much what I have seen for the original recipe except for being as this was a more current magazine article there’s way less cream in it so if you made spaghetti Alo Prima Vera this way it would be very good it wouldn’t be very heavy and it would probably be very delicious and pretty true to the original this is not the way I do it when I give you my recipe but this is his recipe so I wanted to give it in case anyone wanted to do it this way now throughout this recipe one of the things that made this recipe a rather labor intensive thing to do was that most of the vegetables are blanched so what they would do was one at a time they would take the vegetables put them in a seeve dip them into boiling water for 30 seconds take them out and cool them in ice water take those out and put them on a towel and Pat them dry you would be doing this with three different vegetables the original recipe added some other vegetables too so we’ll get to that at the end of all the things you can put in this but here’s the recipe that was with the interview 6 tablespo of olive oil three cloves of garlic minced six oz of button mushrooms quartered one cup of asparagus tips blanched one cup of small broccoli fettes blanched half cup of frozen peas blanched one small zucchini quartered lengthwise cut into 1 in lengths and blanched one pound of spaghetti cooked al dante one cup of heavy cream a half cup of grated Parmesan 2 tablespoons unsalted butter kosher salt and pepper one cup of grape tomatoes haved 2 tablespoons of thinly shredded basil leaves and half cup of lightly toasted pine nuts so here is the method for this one which is very similar to the way that I do it in mine in the original recipe they cook each thing they saut it in a large Skillet and then they pour it out into a bowl and wipe the skillet out and then put the next thing in so each thing you’re sautéing in a skillet then you dump it into a bowl wipe the skillet out and start over another labor intensive step so here is the new instructions with this recipe which streamline it quite a bit heat 5 tablespoons of olive oil in a 12in skillet over medium Heat add 2/3 of the garlic cook until golden about 2 minutes add mushrooms cook until golden about 3 minutes add asparagus broccoli peas and zucchini cook 3 minutes add pasta cream parmesan butter season with salt and pepper toss to combine and transfer to a plate after he transfers that to a serving plate bring the remaining oil garlic and tomatoes and basil to simmer over medium heat pour over the pasta and garnish with pine nuts so the original recipe is basically the same as the recipe in this interview but they used three cups of heavy cream and then like I said the method was also long and you had to wipe out the skillet after each sauté of a vegetable and you finally culminate the last thing you do is you make this very heavy sauce and then you put the pasta into it and then top it with the vegetables that’s a lot of heavy cream and like I said that doesn’t belong in alfredo anyway alfredo sauce is really just made with butter grated Parmesan or Romano cheese and pasta water and some garlic I mean there’s not a lot to it it’s almost like basically the same thing as just making pasta with garlic and olive oil except that you add the cheese to it and you melt the cheese in there which is how you make alfredo sauce Alfredo doesn’t use cream per se although people make it that way I think it’s the American palette likes that really creamy creaminess you know traditional Alfredo just has the cheese and the pasta water making the creaminess and the olive oil and butter you know it’s it’s a combination of that so the way I do Pasta Prima Vera is pretty much the same way as I do the shrimp asparagus pasta in um episode 133 so I’m going to give you my version which is very similar to the version that was in the Savor article except for I leave out the heavy cream and I also like to cook my vegetables and then I turn them out of the pan into a bowl to keep warm what I do is I I usually use like a big bowl like a glass bowl I turn the vegetables into that cover them and then I take the pan and make the kind of like sauce that I’m going to put my pasta into so this is like my pasta primover Vera juggling act cuz I have 10 things going on all at the same time and it all comes out it all comes out okay but this is a good dish I didn’t mention that Prima Vera in Italian it can mean Springtime it can mean very green the idea there is that you’re using fresh spring vegetables because most of the vegetables that are in here are things that you can get now for example asparagus asparagus is ready in May peas are ready some peas are ready in May um zucchini is always the first squash that anybody has available at a farmers market or anything and mushrooms you can get all the time of course broccoli I’ve made this with canned mushrooms and frozen vegetables I’ve made it with hardly any fresh things and I’ve made it with all of the fresh things so it’s a very easily it’s a very versatile recipe you can use other vegetable that that you like in it a lot of times it has carrots in it I remember getting it a lot and it had carrots broccoli green beans and peas in it a lot of pasta dishes Italian pasta dishes have peas or green beans in them I don’t know why that is but that is how it is and I can remember my grandma making I and I this still makes me laugh putting green beans in tomato sauce does not seem like a thing that anyone should ever do but it is done it’s also done in some ser Lebanese cooking Middle Eastern cooking they make a dish that has green beans and a tomatoey sauce so you will find those vegetables in there so you can use different types and colors of peppers like bell peppers or hot peppers even you can use different types of squash like summer squash you can use the flat Italian beans you can use different sorts of peas you can use snap peas you can use onions in it so whatever and this also is a dish that it makes a massive amount of food massive so this is a great thing to make say on Sunday and then take it in your lunch because believe me it it it makes a lot this is also a recipe where you can use different types of pasta you can use spaghetti you can use capalini or angel hair I have had this with springs which is one of my favorite pastas to use in this because Springs don’t go with a lot of things but they work great in this this this is also good for penet either the mini or the regular size pen or zii you can use a smaller zii in it so those things all work good with it I wouldn’t go outside of those unless you were doing shapes like you could do bow ties or wheels or whatever if you wanted to make it something that might be more fun for kids to eat or something but this is a great recipe to use shaped pasta with capalini even capalini would work good in this here comes my recipe for Pasta Prima Vera Alam Mar Mac okay so you’ll need olive oil and you’re going to need a lot through the recipe so I am not saying how many tablespoons you need you’ll need three cloves of garlic minced and you’re going to be dividing those you can also use the Jarred minced garlic for this a rounded up teaspoon of the Jarred minced garlic is about a clove of garlic but you know what the Italians say put in as much as you want 8 oz of fresh mushrooms sliced and you can get those little white button mushrooms one cup of asparagus cleaned remove the tough ends and cut it into like 1 and 1/2 in long pieces one cup of small broccoli fettes a half cup to a cup of frozen peas depending upon how much you like one small zucchini sliced into half inch thick pieces if it’s big diameter you might want to quarter those or have those one cup of grape tomatoes haved one cup of freshly torn spinach fresh basil or dried if it’s fresh you want to take about I don’t know 8 to 10 leaves and tear those into small pieces if it’s dried about a teaspoon of dried one pound of spaghetti cooked you can also use like I said angel hair Springs different shapes bow ties penet whatever a half cup of finely grated and this is fresh don’t use Jarred cuz it’s not going to melt right so half2 cup of finely grated Romano cheese or parmesan cheese either one works 3 tablespoons of butter and then you’ll want kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste and red pepper flakes if you like those first you want to prep all of your vegetables and put them in individual Bowls because you’re going to be adding these one or two at a time to your Skillet have your pasta of choice ready and then put a large pot of water on a burner that is set to medium heat to start heating that water up for your pasta cooking so you can have that happening while you’re preparing your vegetables okay once you get all your vegetables prepped and they’re all in their little bowls and ready to go make sure your Romano cheese is grated and that’s in a bowl have your butter ready to go make sure everything is ready Mison plas you want everything to be ready to go and in its place and ready to put in turn your pasta water on high and get your colander in the sink for draining the pasta when the water starts to boil add a teaspoon of salt and add the pasta and stir to prevent it from sticking cook that to the package instructions if you’re not a fan of el Dante then cook it like 2 minutes longer if you’re doing angel hair you can actually do your vegetable part first and then get your angel hair ready cuz that cooks in 4 minutes the other ones cook in like 11 minutes using a 12in skillet put that on like medium heat and then you’re going to put three or four tablespoons of olive oil in the start so you want to put the vegetables in in order of how long they take to cook some things take a lot longer than others so put about half of your minced garlic into the skillet and then put in the asparagus and broccoli and start tossing them around in the oil and let those sauté for about 3 minutes next add your mushrooms and zucchini all the while keeping an eye on your boiling spaghetti and sauté those for 3 minutes and keep tossing things around a little bit next you’re going to add your peas and tomatoes because you want your tomatoes to cook enough that some of that juice comes out and and adds into your flavor you know and you want to cook and sauté those for like 2 to 3 minutes and keep tossing them around to blend it in now you’re going to top your spinach on there and what you’re going to do with your spinach is just sprinkle it over the top of the vegetables and then sprinkle your basil on with that and just kind of turn it over so that it’s Blended in CU you want it to be I don’t know spinach has some kind of strange property where it likes to stick to itself so when you put the spinach in it all ends up in a clump so just kind of turn it turn it turn it so that it’s spread out in there and it begins to wilt toss those around once your spinach has wielded you’re going to turn the heat off and you’re going to take those vegetables and remove them into a bowl to hold on to them put a cover over the top of those now back to the pasta for a second you’re going to take about a cup of pasta water out I use a Dipper and then I put it in a big glass measuring cup for the Alfredo sauce so what you want to do is take a Dipper like you use to serve soup or something and scoop some water out of there and put it into a glass measuring cup and set it aside and then go ahead and drain your pasta now return your pasta to the pot and toss one tablespoon of butter in there and toss the pasta around this will keep it from sticking together and it also just makes it taste good your vegetables are in your bowl waiting put that Skillet back on a burner and set it on medium heat now you’re going to add 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil 2 tblspoon of butter the rest of your garlic and you’re going to stir that until your butter melts and your garlic is just lightly sauteed you don’t want it to turn brown you just want it to be lightly sauteed now add a four cup of the pasta water and stir that into your butter garlic olive oil mixture to heat it up once that gets heated up add your cheese and you want to stir that around until it melts and just keep stirring it until your cheese is melted and everything’s pretty well Blended and then add your pasta and toss that to coat it and it’ll put like a nice light coating all over the whole pasta okay all over all of the pasta season that with salt and pepper just until it tastes how you like it to taste so this is how I serve it I pour the pasta into a large flat pasta dish that I have which is a fantastic thing if you don’t have one of those you can use a big serving platter or a big bowl and then top it with your cooked vegetables you can also top those cooked vegetables with even more grated cheese if you really like cheese and you can also do this you can take the vegetables and the pasta and toss them together but only do that if you’re using pen or Springs or some kind of a shape because if you try to do this with spaghetti or angel hair it’s a disaster believe me it’s so much easier if you just put it on top and you kind of when you scoop it out grab some pasta and grab some vegetables you know and you can pick out the things you want kind of and put it on there here’s another thing you can do too you can put the pasta in bowls and then say you’re having like six people and I mean this is a lot of pasta but you can divide your pasta into six portions in bowls and then put the vegetables on top of each Bowl which is a nice presentation um that’s one of the serving suggestions actually for Pasta Prima Vera um you’ll notice that I did not use the pine nuts I did not do the slightly I’ll tell you why I didn’t use pine nuts because pine nuts cost a small Fortune okay so even though they’re a delightful addition to anything I think at this point we can just leave them off if they come down in price someday I mean nobody wants to put $12 worth of pine nuts on top of some spaghetti that is Pasta Prima Vera it’s a wonderful wonderful summer dish I mean you can add chicken or shrimp to this or something like that but I encourage you to do it just like this to make it this way you can if you’re a person who likes more cheese or a Saucier sauce you can always adjust your pasta water amounts and your cheese amounts whatever and hey if you come into a whole bunch of money throw some pine nuts on there yeah you win the lottery get some pine nuts to celebrate yeah absolutely but yeah this is really good it’s a good summer dish this is the time if you ever said W I’d really like to make something with whatever shaped pasta oh this is a good one for that I hope you try this and I hope you like it I love it and we are going to be having leftovers of this for supper tonight because I made an enormous batch of it the other day so we really enjoy it I hope you do too and make sure to check us out online on Facebook and threads at marac bakous on Instagram at marymac Bakehouse and marymac podcast and on our website marymac podcast thanks a lot for listening if you did and if you didn’t too bad for you