Thanks Ferrari-Carano for your inspiration for this dish.
I’ve said before that some of my favorite places to look for new recipes are winery sites; and I found this recipe at Ferrari-Carano.com.
Even though I have made pasta many times, I wasn’t up to making the bowtie pasta this time around. You may not remember me talking about our pasta making experience in Italy several years ago; believe me, it was an I Love Lucy moment for sure. We did make bow tie pastas along with about 5 other varieties. I remember the strip of pasta for the bow ties and tortellinis getting bigger and bigger as we rolled through the machine and we were folding it over our arms to keep up.
But, when I found this recipe a couple of years ago, I remembered some beautiful striped pasta I had seen in my grocery and what better pasta to use to make a butterfly pasta dish. If you want to try and make your own butterflies, visit their website and give it a go. Of course, when I went looking for the colorful little pieces of pasta, they were no where to be found but on Amazon. My Amazon Prime membership has really paid off because I order food products from them all the time and with no shipping it is a lot easier than driving all over the place looking for something. So, if you want to try the pasta I used, you can order it here.
I wanted to make this dish for someone special and I did. I was in Austin for a few days babysitting my grandson, Thomas. He isn’t a baby anymore. At almost 16 months he’s walking around doing karaoke (or trying to sing anyway). He was on break from school and Gran was there to help out and when I’m there, what I love doing most other than seeing him (them) is to cook something good. One night I made my Salmon in Mustard Sauce with Brussels Sprouts Salad and another night I made this buffterfly pasta dish. I changed up the recipe a little and added some crisp (baked) prosciutto and I added in some grilled chicken strips to some of the pasta. I also changed the snow peas to sugar snap peas because I like them better — crispier and they don’t go flat like a snow pea. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 qts heavy cream. I only used about 12 oz of the pasta and about three cups cream to make the sauce. See notes in recipe.
A nice crisp white wine would be wonderful with this; why not try a Fumé Blanc from Ferrari-Carano winery.
BLAST FROM THE PAST: Wok’n Noodles is a recipe I did when we came back from France in 2012. I had snapped a picture of a restaurant called Wok’n Noodles and thought that would make a cute name for a blog post.
I also decided to add some precooked (frozen) grilled chicken strip pieces from Trader Joe’s.
I baked the prosciutto early in the day and refrigerated until we ready to add to the dish.
It only took about 10-12 minutes at 350° for the prosciutto to get nice and crisp.
I snipped the ends a little and removed the stringy part from the sugar snap peas. If you use snow peas instead, do the same.
I used my peeler to shave the bottom1 1/2 of the stems; this helps to make the stalks less tough.
Aren’t these beautiful. The pasta came in 2-8 oz. packages. The recipe called for 1# of pasta so I decided to mix the two.
the shallots and garlic get sauteed for a couple of minutes then I added the chicken, asparagus and sugar snap peas.
Cook the pasta gently in slowly boiling water for 8-10 minutes. Do not overcook.
Add in the cream and cheese and stir until it starts to thicken. This took about 10 minutes or so.
After the sauce has thickened, add in the crispy prosciutto pieces and stir or leave on top for garnish. Add more shaved parmesan if you wish for garnish.
Big pan of deliciousness.
Garnished with a little more shaved parmesan cheese.
- 1 lb. bow tie pasta, any size
- 1 lb. asparagus
- 2 oz. unsalted butter
- 1/3 lb. snap peas, trimmed
- 1 1/4 qt. heavy cream
- 2/3 c. parmesan cheese
- salt and white pepper to taste
- Cook the pasta according to package directions.
- Trim and peel asparagus, cut on bias into 1" pieces. Blanch asparagus and drain and dry.
- Melt butter in saute pan and add snow peas and asparagus, saute, tossing often until vegetables are tender. Add cream and cheese. Bring to boil and reduce until cream is slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss with pasta immediately.
- Enjoy!
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