Italian Food Lovers

As the Chicago Botanic Garden carried on with the Garden Chefs Series until the end of summer, we still have several recipes from the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend we already introduced here on Italian Food Lovers.

After presenting recipes from Chef Lorenzo Boni and Chef Doug D’Avico, today we introduce one of the other participant Chefs, Chef Laura Piper, Corporate Chef at Francesca’s Restaurants in Chicago, pictured here below during her Chicago cooking demo.

Chef Laura Piper today shares with us a classic pasta dish from the Francesca’s Restaurant menu, Linguine Fagottaro Pasta Salad.

LINGUINE FAGOTTARO PASTA SALAD
A recipe by Chef Laura Piper
(serves 6)

SAUCE INGREDIENTS

- 10 large (peeled, seeded and diced)
- 1/2 oz. Fresh basil (chopped)
- 1/2 oz. Raw garlic (chopped)
- 1/2 can Tomato juice
- Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil, to taste
- Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salt with black olives, to taste
- black pepper, to taste

PASTA INGREDIENTS

- 4 lbs. Barilla Linguine pasta (cooked)
- 3 tablespoon Garlic (chopped)
- 3 tablespoon Shallots (chopped)
- 12 Fresh basil leaves (julienne)
- 3 oz. White wine
- 3 tablespoon Academia Barilla Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (grated)
- 3 tablespoon Fresh parsley (chopped)
- 5 tablespoon Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil
- 12 oz. Academia Barilla Pecorino Dolce
- Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salt with black olives, to taste
- crushed red chilies, to taste

PREPARATION

Start preparing the sauce. Set aside 1/4 of diced tomatoes. Combine all remaining ingredients in a food processor and pulse to a chunky consistency. Add remaining tomatoes and fold into mixture.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate sauce until ready to assemble with pasta.

In a sauté pan, sweat garlic and shallots in 2 tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil. Upon garlic and shallots becoming translucent, add white wine to sauté pan. Allow to reduce for 2 minutes. Add cooked linguine, parsley, basil and remaining extra virgin olive oil to sauté pan. Toss with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and season with salt and crushed red chilies to taste.

To assemble, spoon the pasta onto your serving platter. Pour chilled sauce over the pasta and top with fresh pecorino dolce and garnish with a sprig of basil.

Buon Appetito!

Thank you Laura - more recipes and pictures from the Garden Chef Series at the Chicago Botanic Garden will be coming up soon!

Just stay tuned and keep cooking with us!

Here we are finally with Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni, who we have called in at Italian Food Lovers by mistake a couple of days ago - sorry Lorenzo!

Chef Lorenzo Boni and his team have been the spine of the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Garden Chef Series. Pictured here below, you can see Lorenzo in action during the cooking demo, surrounded by an attentive crowd and… the full range of Academia Barilla gourmet products, which are all available online at the Academia Barilla online store.

As “resident Chef” for Barilla USA Lorenzo proposed several recipes to the participants to the event, and we are glad to be able to share with you the first one today, an easy-to-prepare pasta salad: Farfalle Piccolini Pasta Salad.

FARFALLE PICCOLINI PASTA SALAD
A recipe by Chef Lorenzo Boni
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

- Barilla Farfalle Piccolini pasta, 1 package
- Academia Barilla Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil, 4 tablespoons
- 1 ripe avocado
- Cherry tomatoes, 2 pints
- Red onion, julienne, 1 cup
- Pine nuts, 1 tablespoon
- Academia Barilla Pecorino Sardo Gran Cru, grated, 1 cup
- Basil, 5 leaves
- Lemon juice from 1 lemon
- Salt, black pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Cook pasta according to directions, drain one minute prior to the lowest cooking time; drizzle with a little oil in order to prevent the pasta from sticking together and allow it to cool down flat on a sheet tray.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion with 1 tablespoon of oil. Set aside.

Slice the tomatoes in half, season with salt and let drain in a colander.

Sauté the pine nuts over medium heat till lightly brown.

Dice the avocado. Combine all the ingredients with pasta, season with salt and pepper.

Allow the salad to rest for half hour at room temperature before serving.

Thank you Lorenzo for sharing with us your pasta salad recipe - we’ll publish more recipe of yours soon again!