Salmon Pasta

There are many small pleasures in life: taking a deep breath, morning coffee, enjoying a lavender bath, hugging your baby… One small pleasure of both Adam’s and mine is a good chewy pasta!

When Adam and I got married three years ago, we spent our honeymoon in Italy. I had always dreamed of a romantic road-trip around Italy—eating pasta and drinking good wine. I was very lucky Adam went along with it. We drove around Tuscany and Umbria, Lake Garda and Como, ending the trip with Milan and Rome. We ate pasta at every stop. We learned that in Tuscany the pasta is yellow, they use egg as a main ingredient. The egg gives the pasta this amazing chewy texture.

When we arrived back to San Diego one of the first things I did was to look for egg pasta—I was hooked! After kissing a few frogs I found the closest to my prince: De Cecco egg pasta. It is pretty good being the closest to what we tasted in Italy. On Saturday I made a salmon pasta that I would love to share with you. It was very good!

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

2 tbs of butter

1 fresh tomato

3/4 c of vodka

1 cup of water

3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream

1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

1/2 tsp salt

4 leaves of fresh basil

Make it:

Melt the butter in a deep pan. Mince the onion and garlic and cook it in the butter until transparent. Mince the tomato and add it to the onion mixture. After cooking for a few minutes add the water and let it boil. Add the vodka to the onion and butter mixture and light it with a match. After the flame disappears let the mixture boil until it is reduced in half. Add the cream, salt, pepper and basil. Cook until the mixture reduces by half again. If using fresh salmon (smoked salmon is great too), cut raw salmon into 1/2 inch pieces and add to them to the sauce, cook for 5 minutes. Meanwhile boil your pasta al dente (5 min) in water containing salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and toss. Serve with your favorite parmesan cheese.