It's nearly June, and oddly enough this means that peach season has started. (Tomatoes are right around the corner!)
At the the Homegrown Alabama farmer's market, I picked up a bunch of peaches for my favorite peach recipe, which involves chocolate–and isn't a dessert.
I found the recipe fairly haphazardly. Occasionally I search Google for a handful of disparate ingredients in the pantry. This has served me very, very well on most occasions. And if you're squeamish about peach and chocolate with pasta, well, just look at the results:
I found a recipe by Sean Conway and Francis Segan over at Cultivating Life, where they explain that before Italians had tomatoes, they used fruits for their pasta sauces, and moreover, they used to use chocolate as a spice. The chocolate peach pasta in the recipe (and video) below can be made with peaches or any other stone fruit.
I've tried it with nectarines, and I've even supplemented peaches with mango, to great effect. What they don't tell you is that the sauce varies in fun, interesting ways depending on the peaches/fruit. The peaches I used this evening were ripe when I bought them, and so now were over-ripe. This made for a much sweeter sauce than usual. The peaches were fairly yellow, so the sauce after the chocolate was added turned out light brown. In the past, I've used peaches with rich purply and red in them, which turns the sauce color vibrant pink before the chocolate, and much closer to standard tomato sauce after the chocolate.
Chocolate Peach Pasta Recipe (with my tweaks):
1/2 to 1 cups white wine
8 fresh peaches, chopped (or a bag of frozen chopped peaches, partially thawed)
1 to 2 oz chocolate as dark as you can get (65-100%)
fresh thyme to taste
2 to 4 tablespoons butter, chopped or chunked
3 shallots, minced (more if you love shallots)
1 lb radiatore or your favorite sauce-grabbing pasta shape
parmesan, freshly grated and/or shaved
cocoa nibs
salt and pepper to taste
Boil the pasta according to package directions -- start the water heating right before you start the sauce.
Cook the peaches and half the wine in a saucepan over medium heat, and bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes, until the peaches break down. This takes longer with firmer, less-ripe peaches (and sometimes with frozen). Add the rest of the wine gradually, but use less if you prefer a thicker sauce.
At this point, if you like, mash the peaches gently with a potato masher to achieve a more uniform, but still fairly chunky sauce. (Use a stick blender or food processor if you like blasting the texture out of your sauces.)
Remove the sauce from heat and stir in the chocolate and thyme.
Drain the pasta, and place in a serving bowl. Toss with butter and shallots until butter melts and coats the pasta evenly.
Don't toss the sauce with the pasta. Serve it over the top of each serving of pasta, and top each with parmesan and cocoa nibs (and salt and pepper) to taste.
Serves 4 normal people, 2 Emmas, or 6 if it's a side.
Some notes:
–I prefer this sauce with radiatore, or any pasta with texture and folds, but the folks in the video recommend penne.
–I know nothing about white wines (or any wines, really), but I usually grab something mid-range and self-described as fruity.
–The amount of wine always varies for me, but I never need as much as the original recipe calls for.
–Cocoa nibs are bitter and add a good deal of depth to the meal, but the recipe certainly doesn't need them.
–The thyme is great, but if you are out of thyme, try oregano.
–If, like me, you cringe at the thought of raw shallots, try sauteing them briefly in the butter before tossing with the pasta.
Original recipe at Cultivating Life.