Our friend Toni recently gifted me with 4 goose eggs which she assured me were great for making fresh pasta. Is it just my imagination or do people just get a kick of giving me large quantities of challenging ingredients? I’m not complaining I’m just wondering out loud.
Goose eggs are HUGE. It has the most gratifying heft in your hand, thick sandstone colored shell; gigantic bright orange yolk and water clear white. An average chicken egg’s contents weighs about 45-50 grams, a goose egg weighs in at around 125 grams. Doing a rough comparison, goose eggs are higher in calories, protein and cholesterol. It is the protein part that intrigues me because the pasta dough had a much drier and slicker hand feel than chicken egg pasta. I opted to make cavatelli, which in retrospect was a good choice, because I think goose egg pasta lends itself to a chunkier, heavier style pasta. I used a traditional 2:1 ratio of flour to egg, and actually had to cut back a bit on the flour because the dough was becoming too stiff and dry.
The fun part was the ‘sauce’, not really a sauce but more of a condiment.
1 radicchio head, thinly sliced
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
¼ cup guanciale, pancetta or bacon
1//4 cup fresh walnuts, roughly chopped
3 T Gorgonzola dolce, the soft kind
Balsamic Vinegar
Salt, Pepper
About 4 minutes before your pasta is done, start the sauce.
Sauté the pancetta, then add the onion and finally the radicchio. Use a sauté pan big enough to hold the drained, cooked pasta. Sauté the vegetables until everything is tender and wilted.
When the pasta is done, drain and add to the sauté pan and cook until slightly browned. Toss in the walnuts. Adjust for salt and pepper.
Plate the pasta and add a nugget of Gorgonzola in the center, sprinkle on a bit of good balsamic vinegar. Eat.
A note about walnuts: Discovery! Fresh walnuts make a huge difference. I’ve always used the grocery store walnuts in a bag, and you know, uh, they have a mild walnut taste. We were given a huge bag of very fresh walnuts (see what I mean… people give me great stuff!) and Jeff was my hero and shelled the whole lot of them. They are so flavorful and oily…grocery store walnuts just won’t cut it anymore. I’m such a snob.
