I’m Obsessed With This Extra-Green Pasta Salad | Andy Baraghani | NYT Cooking

Get the FREE recipe for Andy Baraghani’s Extra-Green Pasta Salad: https://nyti.ms/4dq9FKy

This vibrant green pasta salad gets its color from a combination of spinach and basil, but you can swap the spinach for arugula for a more peppery finish. (Some of us need a little bite in our lives!) The miso in the sauce does a lot of the heavy lifting, imparting a salty, almost Parmesan-like quality. You can eat the salad immediately or chilled for a summer picnic — the choice is yours.

——————————————

Download the Cooking app for daily dinner picks, helpful tools, and even more videos: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nyt-cooking/id911422904

VISIT NYT COOKING: https://cooking.nytimes.com/

SUBSCRIBE to NYT COOKING: https://nyti.ms/3FfKmfb
A paid subscription gets you full access to our recipes, daily inspiration and a digital Recipe Box.

YOUTUBE: https://bit.ly/2MrEFxh

INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/2DqJMuD
FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/2MrTjEC
TWITTER: http://bit.ly/2RZB6ng
PINTEREST: http://bit.ly/2W44xng

About NYT Cooking:
All the food that’s fit to eat (yes, it’s an official New York Times production).

“It doesn’t have the extra,
but I’m O.K. with that. Extra-Green Pasta
Salad, take one.” [CLICK] studio kitchen. Today, we are making my
extra-green pasta salad. I think it was my first recipe
for New York Times Cooking. So I’m very, very
excited to make it. The goal for this
recipe was really to just convince me that pasta
salad is a great, great thing. I’ve had so many
bad pasta salads. And I think I hear from a
lot of people that it either doesn’t have a lot
of flavor or texture. They’re using the
wrong kind of pasta. So I wanted to come up with
a recipe that solves these problems, and make it really,
really beautiful and very green.” You’ll see both
with and without. The ones with will catch
the sauce really nicely. But if you like
Fusilli, Campanelle — even Orecchiette would
be really nice for this because they catch the
peas, the snap peas, and those pieces of
Parmesan really nicely. The way I salt my
pasta water is that it should be quite salty. You’re going to see me
add quite a bit of salt. But it shouldn’t
taste like the ocean. That was something
that I think people kept on saying over and over. But for this, definitely, I
like to do three very large — I wouldn’t even
call them pinches, but like mini handfuls. Now, if we were cooking
this with a sauce in a pan, then you would really cook
the pasta just a few minutes before it’s al dente. But because we’re just
going to be tossing it with the pesto in a bowl off heat,
you’re just going to cook it all the way through
to al dente. So while the pasta
is boiling, we are going to make our sauce. So this is just
1 garlic clove, which may not seem like a
lot, but that garlic is only going to concentrate as
it sits with the pasta. So just be aware. Start with 1 garlic clove. Make this recipe. If you want it
even more garlicky, add 2 cloves next time. And then we’re going to
add a ton of spinach, all this basil. You can see this is a good
way to use up a lot of greens. The spinach has a
mild sweetness to it. So you still get that basil
flavor because it’s stronger. And then the white miso. The white miso has a
salty flavor to it. But it also will add kind
of a Parmesan effect, even though we’re not adding
Parmesan to the sauce. Lemon zest. The juice will add
a nice tang to it, but it’s the zest that really
adds that extra-lemony flavor to the sauce. And I think that’s another
thing that I have a little bit of an issue with. I shouldn’t say ‘issue.’ A big
problem with most pasta salads is that there’s not
a lot of balance. It’s either too fatty, too
creamy, or it’s too acidic. With this, it’s that lemon
zest and juice creates a nice balance to the kind of
fattiness you get from the big piece of cheese
and, obviously, the olive oil in the sauce. I’m going to add a
little bit of salt. It could probably take more,
but that white miso is already salty. So we’ll taste and adjust,
and a good amount of pepper. If you’re super traditional,
you would make it in a mortar and pestle. We’re not doing that here
because this is clearly not a traditional pesto. With a food processor
and a mortar and pestle, you get a lot of texture. But with this sauce, I wanted
it to be very, very smooth. This is not the type where you
have to slowly mix the olive oil in.” [WHIRRING] “That’s it. All right, let’s taste it. Very, very smooth. Really nice and green. Even though there’s
so much more spinach, the basil fully comes through. The spinach really adds
that kind of creaminess to the sauce. If you want it more acidic,
add more lemon juice. It is already so nice. It’s really an
all-purpose sauce. It’s great for
this pasta dish, but I think it would be
delicious on grilled steak, salmon tossed with potatoes. So we’re going to
slice our Parmesan. Not only do we want the
flavor of the Parmesan to come through, you also
want the actual texture. So I like thick slices. Different types of Pecorino — Pecorino Romano,
Sardo, Toscano — would be great. But I think a firm, aged
cheese would be best. When I think of pasta salads,
it’s something that is delicious right away, but
also delicious hours later or the next day or
a few days later. And a firm cheese is going to
be able to hold up more than a fresh one.” “What’s your favorite
pasta-salad pasta shape?” “I do love rigatoni as
long as it has the ridges, which is what
we’re using today. I think Campanelle is just
like a chic pasta shape. Fusilli would be
delicious because it does an incredible job of
catching so much sauce and so many ingredients. Orecchiette does a fine job. I’ll just say that.” “Our pasta is al dente. We’re adding our snaps. We are adding our frozen peas. You don’t need to thaw them. And this is really
just 20 seconds, just so they turn
bright green. Let’s drain them. We’re going to give them
a little bit of a rinse. Not something that I
typically do with pasta, but we’re just trying to
prevent them from cooking any longer, the pasta
and both the peas. All right. So we have our pasta and peas. We have our sauce. We have our cheese. Now we’re going to toss. All right. So you want a large bowl where
you can really easily mix the pasta with the sauce. But you can see
how not only green, but how creamy this sauce is. And that just tiny bit
of miso does a lot. It still has some
residual heat. That kind of warms that
raw garlic in the sauce. And so you smell that
garlic right away. Tiny bit of salt. And then
we’ll add our big pieces of Parmesan, and just
another toss or two. The cheese doesn’t have
to be fully sauced. You still want to make out
those pieces of cheese.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “So here’s our beauty. I think she’s a winner. And it smells so good. And see, this is why I love
those ridges on the rigatoni. You really get so much
sauce with each pasta. And I think most
pastas just immediately are going to make you happy. It does have a very
light, springy, but perfect-for-summer
feel to it. This is to making better
pasta salads in your future. For my extra-green pasta salad
recipe or any of my other recipes, click the link below
for New York Times Cooking.”