Spring pasta with fresh ricotta and peas.
(waves crashing)
We have fresh ricotta cheese,
fresh whole milk ricotta cheese,
about a cup or so, per one pound of pasta.
This is the base of our sauce,
and we make that sauce pretty much in a bowl.
So what we're gonna do is combine the zest of one lemon,
very vigorously zested by John.
(audience laughing)
And we're going to cut off a lemon cheek,
and add a couple teaspoons
of juice. (knife clanging)
'Bout two teaspoons of juice, cut side up,
so seeds don't fall in.
Little bit of white pepper or fine ground black.
Little bit of salt.
White pepper looks pretty with that, 'cause it's salt.
Yeah. White.
Right! And it has a nice flavor with these flavors.
(whisk thuds) And,
we're going to kind of richen this up
by taking melted butter
and grating in a few fat cloves of garlic.
Hmm.
And then we're gonna swirl the garlic butter together,
just to mellow the garlic itself.
And then we're gonna add the garlic to the ricotta
with lots of fresh herbs.
We have thyme, mint and parsley.
Yeah, it's really delicious.
It's so bright and so easy.
(grater clanging)
Okay.
So swirl-y, swirl-y.
Whisk-y, whisk-y.
Then, what comes next?
Pour-y, pour-y!
Pour-y, pour-y! (audience laughs)
All right, hon, pour-y, pour-y.
With the milky, About
milky? a third of a cup
of creamy, creamy Creamy, creamy?
(Rachael and audience laughing)
into the bowl.
God, I'm so embarrassed.
Okay, that's good! Good, good.
And, I'm gonna run my knife a little bit more through
a handful of parsley, mint and thyme.
Could you do me a huge favor, honey?
Yes?
It's actually a really small favor.
Take the lid off that pot,
salt the water and drop the (indistinct).
It's like little squares of lasagna.
Any short-cut pasta works for this dish.
(knife chopping)
You just want something
that's gonna grab a lot of the ricotta and the fresh peas
that we're going to drop into the water.
After the pasta cooks (pasta thudding against box)
about halfway,
we're gonna add a cup of fresh peas.
And I have, here, some toasted pistachio nuts.
Hmm.
All I'm saying is you might wanna toast a few extra,
'cause I tend to eat them.
(audience laughing)
The pasta is just perfect,
AKA slightly undercooked. (audience cheering)
(audience clapping)
So now we're gonna put the hot pasta back in the hot pot,
and we're gonna take that,
it's liquid gold, really.
The salty, starchy cooking water.
(mug thudding) Add a little bit
to get it going,
and we're gonna combine that with the ricotta cream,
with the garlic butter, (bowl thuds)
(audience exclaims) and loosen this up.
All of the pasta should go with all of the sauce.
Nothing drives me crazier. John knows this about me.
It's like a pet peeve.
Like, sometimes on a jar of sauce, or in a recipe,
or in a book that somebody sends me,
I'll be thumbing through,
and it'll be a big bowl of naked pasta
with just a blob of sauce in the middle.
I'm like, you only want a third of that to taste good?
(audience laughing)
Like, I don't even understand!
I really just don't.
Oh, this looks so good.
(audience clapping)
I just wanna get in there.
Here's our parm.
Oh, that's some good glue!
(audience cheering and clapping)
Now, I'm gonna take the crunchy, larger pea tendrils,
and throw those right in with the peas and the pasta,
and the ricotta mixture.
And now we're gonna take
(audience clapping) the pasta.
(audience cheering)
Looks all right.
Looks good!
And then, we're gonna top it with the rest of our herbs,
some pistachios.
(audience exclaims)
There you go. (audience cheering)
Yummy!
(waves crash)