Pasta with Radicchio Agridulce and Tinned Fish
Pasta with Radicchio Agridulce and Tinned Fish
Sometimes an unforgettable meal happens out of thin air.
I always know life is out of balance when I’m not cooking as much. I find so much of my sanity and my peace in cooking. I need cooking to live. I need to clean the vegetables. Prime the space with the right music. Find my flow. Do the dishes in a particularly organized way while the dogs eat any little thing that falls on the floor. The entire process of cooking is nourishing. Especially during the last week, cooking was truly soothing for my messy mind.
It was a week full of big emotions.
I’ve been dealing with a health scare and I felt paralyzed by fear at times. The kind of fear that tricks you into thinking that you’d rather not know, but also the kind of fear that you turn into: “I will face whatever this is.” (I got some answers this week and I think I’m going to be okay.)
I put together this bowl of pasta in what felt like less than 20 minutes. It has some of my favorite things to eat: big pasta, radicchio, and tinned fish. My friend, Elisabetta, one of my absolute favorite cooks and people in the world, was telling me about cooking radicchio in balsamic vinegar and I tucked that into my mind anticipating the next time I had a head of the bitter Italian chicory on my board.
Braising radicchio in balsamic with chile flakes and garlic really transforms it. I see it as an initiation to introducing tempered-bitter flavors to the things I love to eat. While the radicchio is braising and the sauce is reducing until you see clusters of tiny bubbles at the bottom of the skillet, reach for tinned fish. I love having a fully stocked cabinet of tinned seafood at all times: Portuguese sardines, ventresca, mackerel, mussels in escabeche, Cantabrian anchovies, razor clams in brine, geoduck from Baja California, Sur. It really is one of the fastest and most delicious ways to add protein to a dish. The sardines here are such a beautiful contrast to the radicchio. They play nicely with the sweet and sour sauce and the chewy texture of pasta. If you’re not into tinned seafood, you can keep it veg or add some parm instead.
When I’m making a pasta dish without a sauce, I like to go big to keep me entertained with its big shape. But any short and stubby shape will work for this dish. Finish it with a glug of olive oil, pistachios, and flaky salt. Sometimes you don’t need to plan a meal, it just happens, and you may find that cooking is your own zen, too.
I hope you enjoy this week’s sounds with big emotions, via Laura Itandehui, Ed Maverick and Kevin Kaarl from Chihuahua, Katzú Oso from Montebello CA, and Caloncho from Sonora.