Penne with sun-dried tomato, fresh chilli and walnut pesto, and burrata
Strong and robust flavors, umami, fiery and earthy
Published originally on my blog on 30 January 2018
My day started weird on Monday. I didn’t hear the alarm go off because I was having such an intense dream I didn’t even realize it was going off for over ten minutes before my boyfriend finally woke me up.
I didn’t have time to have breakfast before an appointment with my physiotherapist— I have a sprained arm that hurts like hell, even as I write this now, which I shouldn’t be doing incidentally—, and when I got there, ten minutes early as always (I’m prompt like that), I waited for a good fifteen minutes for my physio to come pick me up. When she finally came down she said my appointment was an hour earlier. I was looking at her with my mouth and eyes wide open. I never make mistakes like that. Turns out I didn’t. She did. I was the one who had to live with it.
I left angry and a little sad because the pain was worse that day. I needed her healing hands.
When I got home, a thousand emails were waiting for me and some bad news from S. I wanted to cry but held back the tears. It wasn’t that I was sad, I was frustrated by the way my day was going. I pressed on. I made a strong cup of espresso, I went through my emails, worked until the afternoon and then I realized I had to make dinner.
On days like these, when I don’t have much time to think let alone plan a meal, I divert to pasta. That savior, always there to make even the worst day feel good. Especially a winter’s day.
Pasta like this one. With a sun-dried tomato, red chilli and walnut pesto, rocket leaves and burrata; another miracle of the Italian cheese world.
The chunky pesto is a fiery one, rendered as such by the hot fresh red chilli, with a musky and deep flavor from the sun-dried tomatoes, umami flavor from the Parmigiano, pungency from the garlic, nutty earthiness from the walnuts.
It’s strong and robust, with intense flavors; dare I say, the perfect wintertime pesto to color and flavor your pasta. It also adds texture, getting inside the holes and ridges of the penne, filling them, coating them, making the dish utterly delicious.
The burrata brings creaminess and richness and goes well with the pesto as it mellows out its sharp, spicy and hot yet balanced flavors, while the rocket adds pepperiness, freshness and a slight bitterness that’s quite fitting.
Penne with sun-dried tomato, fresh red chilli and walnut pesto, rocket and burrata
Burrata (which means buttery in Italian) is a fresh Italian cheese made from an outer layer of mozzarella that is filled with cream and mozzarella curds that ooze out when you tear it open. It is one of the most spectacular cheeses I have ever eaten particularly because of its super rich, creamy and chewy texture, and its milky, slightly sour and sweet, buttery flavor that is, however, not at all overwhelming.