Today I want to share with you one of my favourite recipes. Well, it is actually a double recipe as I am going to show you how to make Trofie from scratch with a tutorial AND how to make a delicious, very simple and light walnut sauce to serve them with. Trofie are my absolute favourite pasta to make and eat. When I lived in Italy, I never made them by hand as you could easily find them fresh at the shops. I do not like to buy dried trofie, as they take forever to cook and they remain hard all the time. I like my pasta al dente, but not hard! 😉 So, when I moved to Sydney, I stopped eating trofie for a long time, until I decided to make them myself. I was really surprised to discover how easy they are to make, once you get the hang of it. I now make them quite often and I have become pretty fast at rolling them. My 2 and a half year old loves to help me rolling, and she is learning how to make them too. Trofie are typical from the region of Liguria, where they are usually served with pesto or with a walnut sauce. Today I will give you the recipe for the latter dish. This is also this week’s post for my Regional Italian dish series. Enjoy!
Ingredients (for 4 persons):
1 batch of Trofie (click here for the tutorial), made with 350 gms – 10.5 oz. of durum wheat flour
½ clove of garlic
5 tbsp walnuts
½ tbps parsley (not in the picture)
1 slice of white sandwich bread, soaked in milk
4 extra tbsp milk (or a little more)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
A pinch of salt
Parmigiano Reggiano, thinly grated to serve (optional)
Put the garlic, walnuts, parsley, soaked bread, milk and salt in the mixer and mix till the sauce is finely ground. Add the extra virgin olive oil, mix and keep it aside. You may need to add a little extra milk, depending on how much liquid the bread has absorbed. You will need to obtain a creamy sauce, similar to pesto in consistency.
Cook the Trofie following the steps on “How to cook pasta al dente”. Only in this you will not have a pre set cooking time. The time will vary based on whether you have left the pasta to dry (and for how long) etc. So, the best solution is to taste it! Remember, it does have to remain firm.
When the pasta is cooked, drain it, put it in a serving bowl and mix it with the walnut sauce.
Serve it hot with some Parmigiano Reggiano on the top (optional).
NOTE 1: you can also serve this sauce with other types of pasta. I like it a lot with spaghetti or linguine.
NOTE 2: you can also serve trofie with pesto (click here for the recipe).
Trofie with Walnut Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 batch of Trofie
- ½ clove of garlic
- 5 tbsp walnuts
- ½ tbps parsley not in the picture
- 1 slice of white sandwich bread soaked in milk
- 4 extra tbsp milk or a little more
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- A pinch of salt
- Parmigiano Reggiano thinly grated to serve (optional)
Instructions
-
Put the garlic, walnuts, parsley, soaked bread, milk and salt in the mixer and mix till the sauce is finely ground. Add the extra virgin olive oil, mix and keep it aside. You may need to add a little extra milk, depending on how much liquid the bread has absorbed. You will need to obtain a creamy sauce, similar to pesto in texture.
-
Cook the Trofie following the steps on “How to cook pasta al dente”. Only in this case, you will not have a pre set cooking time. The time will vary based on whether you have left the pasta to dry (and for how long) etc. So, the best solution is to taste it! Remember, it does have to remain firm.
-
When the pasta is cooked, drain it, put it in a serving bowl and mix it with the walnut sauce.
-
Serve it hot with some Parmigiano Reggiano on the top (optional).
Recipe Notes
You can also serve this sauce with other types of pasta. I like it a lot with spaghetti or linguine.
You can also serve trofie with pesto (click here for the recipe).
It is the end of the month again! Which means it is time to check out the great round up that Nancy from Spicie Foodie has put together of some of the best recipes from the blogosphere! Check out Your Best Recipe of July! I am contributing my Sweet Sushi to it! Have fun browsing!
I love the idea of the walnut sauce and shall teach myself how to make trofie as soon as the Olympics finish [not strong enough to be sensible and sleep at night 🙂 !] and have caught up with work: these look absolutely delicious!
My son loves nut sauce, but I make it wil pecan instead fo walnuts and we have to cook it becase it has onions. Love yours because I don’t have to cook, and you you can make it faster.
Now, making the trofie I guess practice gives perfection. I will try.