Trofie with Pesto, Genova Style

Reminiscing about my recent honeymoon to southern Italia, I also started to think about the trip we took in 2009 to the northern part. In Italia, each region has their specialty meals or products. In the Genova, Liguria area, a specialty dish is pasta with pesto, potatoes, and green beans.  We ate this for dinner a couple times while in the area. It's just, YUM. I've been wanting to make it at home ever since we went... lucky for my husband and me, tonight I finally made it! I opted to leave out the green beans in my take on this traditional dish - nothing against green beans, I like it better with just the potatoes. I'm a potato person. Anyway, our pesto was made from home-grown basil from my parents' garden, but grocery basil is always second best ;).  Now for the trofie pasta...in the USA, I haven't seen it all that much. You can find it in the specialty stores but if you can't, you could always use a fusilli-like pasta or trenette/spaghetti. My trofie are actually from the motherland herself. I purchased it there a couple weeks ago during our honeymoon. We love this pasta, it's just so perfect for this dish.

Ingredients:

Pesto: makes 1 cup

• 2 cups Fresh Basil Leaves, packed

• 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• 1/3 cup Pine Nuts

• 3 Garlic Cloves, minced

Pasta: 4-5 people

• 1 pound Trofie

• 6 Yukon Gold Potatoes - cut into small chunks, skin on (If they are large potatoes just use 4)

• Pinch of Crushed Red Pepper (to taste)

• Parmigiano Reggiano

• Olive Oil for drizzle

• Sea Salt for the Pasta and Potato Pots

Pesto Sauce:

Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.  Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor.

Pasta: For 4-5 people

Boil the chunks of potatoes with lightly salted water until they are fully cooked through and softened. Strain and leave aside on warm stove.

Boil the pasta in water with sea salt. Cook until al'dente (about 9 minutes). Strain and put back into the pasta pot. Drizzle some olive oil and mix the pasta so that they don't stick to each other. Add in about 6 table spoons (give/take) of pesto so that the pasta is well coated to your liking. Left over pesto can be frozen! Add the red pepper flakes to your liking (I have a heavy hand here). If you feel like it needs more olive oil, drizzle on some more and mix it in. Add in the potatoes and carefully mix them in as to not smash them. 

Picture shows serving for 2 people

Serve with freshly grated parm and garnish with fresh basil.