malvasia bianca

It’s been more than a year since I posted a recipe: it’s not clear that anybody is interested in them, and while that doesn’t stop me most of the time, it seems particularly pointless in the case of recipes. Still, every once in a while, somebody comes over for dinner and wants the recipe for whatever we serve them, so the blog posts have done some good.

Anyways, we cooked this recipe tonight, as we do every month or two, it’s really easy and good (waiting for the water to come to a boil is the longest step), and I’m in the mood to food blog. So here we are again. We actually ate at the Procope restaurant when we were last in Paris; nothing like this recipe on the menu that time. Good food, though; not sure I’ll make a point of going back, but I’m happy to have gone.

One caution: this recipe leans heavily on oil-cured olives, and good oil-cured olives are hard to find. Actually, oil-cured olives in general are hard to find, unless you patronize high-end grocery stores; and many places that have them only have one kind, which may or may not be any good. So be warned: you may have to go through a bit of searching before finding some that you like. I suspect the recipe would be okay with, say, kalamatas, but I won’t guarantee it.

You don’t really need 1/2 pound of prosciutto, but we regularly use about 6 ounces when making this, and I’m sure the extra two ounces wouldn’t hurt. I’m not the biggest thyme fan; fresh thyme isn’t the sort of ingredient that we measure carefully, but I suspect that the amount I prefer is less than the 2 tsp called for below.

Pasta Procope, from Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
salt to taste
1/2 cup olive oil
8 oz prosciutto
1/2 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted
2 tsp freshly snipped thyme
grated zest of 2 lemons
black pepper to taste
1 pound thin pasta (capellini, angel hair, etc.)

Mix lemon juice, salt, olive oil in a small bowl. Combine everything else. (Except for the pasta, of course!) Cook the pasta, mix everything together.