Carla Makes White Pesto Pasta

All right, before I cook with olive oil,

I'm gonna my favorite skincare regimen.

What I'm doing with my skin

is putting olive oil all over it

before every video we shoot,

and then cooking with olive oil.

Inside and out.

It just makes sense.

Just goes with the whole flow.

Then I'm gonna skid outta here.

[bright music]

Today's video is about white pesto,

the less famous, but equally captivating

cousin of pesto alla genovese.

But pesto actually just means pounded.

So you would put your basil and your cheese

and your nuts and your thing,

and you would pound them in the mortal and pestle.

Pounded sauce.

Then people started making them in food processors,

because that is easier, but not the same.

And the irony of my pesto is that

it's not pounded at all,

and I don't use a mortar and pestle either,

so figure that out.

Here's some walnuts.

This white pesto is made with ricotta, walnuts,

Parm, oregano, and lemon.

The first thing I wanna do is toast the nuts,

which really brings out their flavor

and changes their texture, so they're going in the oven.

So normal pesto, green pesto,

pesto alla Genovese, is a lot of basil

with a little bit of pine nuts and Parm and olive oil.

Oregano in small quantities actually

packs quite a bit of a punch.

There's more oil coming out of an oregano leaf,

and so by only using a little bit,

you actually get a lot of flavor.

Great!

Let's check on the nuts, shall we?

Okay, so they're darker in color.

They smell nutty.

And if you cut one in half,

you'll see that they're kind of golden brown

in the center instead of how they were

just pale white at the very beginning.

The walnuts aren't getting cooked again,

so I want them to be their best selves.

So those are gonna cool off,

but I am gonna put the pasta in the water.

This is a pound of bucatini.

Our recipes are gonna say to cook

the pasta in heavily salted, boiling water,

and that means a good amount of salt.

You guys have seen us do this before,

but I would say a quarter cup

or more is not a crazy amount.

You can use any long pasta for this,

like spaghetti, thick spaghetti,

bucatini, linguine, pappardelle.

You could also use rigatoni, fusilli, radiatori.

You can really use whatever,

just don't use a tiny little shape, like ditalini.

And for the love of god, do not use angel hair.

All right, bucatini's going.

It's gonna take, I don't know,

nine minutes or something?

It's a good thing to set a timer,

because there is literally...

The only thing worse than not salting

your pasta water is overcooking your pasta.

I'd rather have it undercooked than overcooked.

It's a true crime.

So the cheese for the white pesto,

it's really based on ricotta,

which is pretty sweet, not that salty,

has a little bit of lacticness, but it's creamy.

It doesn't exactly melt, but it will

emulsify into the sauce really nicely.

To balance that and give more structure

and just more flavor, I paired it with Parm,

which the recipe calls for two ounces.

Hmm, 1.2.

And the Parmesan is gonna give...

2 1/2 ounces.

Should we just go with it?

'Cause there's gonna be a little nub

that I'm not gonna be able to grate.

You could do this in your Cuisinart

or your Vitamix or whatever.

I'm gonna just grate it by hand.

So the Parm is adding saltiness, richness.

It melts in a different way.

It's gonna help hold everything together.

And it's only a couple ounces,

so I'm gonna just grate it right

into the ricotts, the ricotta.

In my heart of hearts, I'm gonna just be totally honest.

In my heart of hearts, I wanted

to develop this recipe in a mortar and pestle.

But I knew that everyone except for Andy Baraghani

doesn't necessarily have a mortar and pestle,

and I didn't wanna alienate anyone,

and didn't wanna write a recipe

that was gonna be, like, [groans]

Bon Apetit is so annoying.

They think that everybody has a mortar

and pestle just because Andy has a mortar and pestle.

But it's just the part where the walnut

and the garlic would be smashed

together in the mortar and pestle with salt,

and it would abrade it and it would break it all apart,

and then you would add a little olive oil to that.

And I just have this idea that the old-fashioned

way of doing it, that things were more

delicious in the olden days,

because people were working harder for it.

But what if actually it's the same,

it's just more convenient?

This is two teaspoons of oregano.

It was a little bit more.

It seems a waste not to use it,

so I'm just gonna use it.

And then the real truth is,

with or without the pestle,

not to be confused with pestilence,

which was also a thing that ran rampant

through the olden times,

is I could get out the food processor to do this.

We certainly have plenty of food processors,

but then you have to wash that whole rigamarole,

and it's only for this amount of nuts.

But I also am invested for the idea

that some of these bits of nuts

are gonna be really tiny,

and some of the bits of nuts

are gonna be a little bit bigger.

And then there's gonna be more texture.

That didn't take so long.

And really, you could do this for as long

as it takes the pasta to cook,

'cause it's the only other thing you have to do.

So you can see some of this is very powdery,

and some of this is in slightly larger pieces,

and I'm down with that.

You're just gonna run that mixer this whole time, or?

The entire time. [laughs]

I asked Tommy if this was okay.

It's like having a-- He was saying

that it was gonna run for like 25 minutes.

I can move it. It's okay.

It's like having a truck idling outside your apartment,

and you don't realize it's there until it turns off.

These are not done.

They're very resilient still.

When I was in Italy, I was amazed

at how al their al dente was.

I mean, it was borderline crunchy.

I really like it that way.

So this is my fancy French chef trick

that I learned from a fancy French chef.

Instead of scooping the nuts into the bowl,

which is inefficient, voila.

Bingo bango.

Need the zest of a lemon.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a Sicilian lemon?

They're giant, the Sicilian lemon,

and they have very aromatic peels.

I'm doing it the Martha way,

where you collect the zest on the top of the Microplane.

Apparently that's how you're supposed to do it.

Never did it this way my whole life.

Everybody see Brad in the background?

We haven't done a Brad in the background joke for a while,

'cause Brad's been in Texas.

He's been in the way back.

Zest of a lemon.

Whole garlic clove.

All right, so if you're sensitive

to raw garlic like my little sister, do a small clove.

Do half a clove.

I think it's important, this garlic,

this little bit of raw garlic,

because we're cutting through all that dairy,

giving a little bit of heat, a little bit of bite,

a little bit of freshness, a little bit of peppery.

It's not that much.

And then the other thing that's gonna happen,

the whole sauce is gonna happen inside of this bowl.

So I'm gonna mix these things together,

and then I'm gonna add the olive oil.

I like to mix all the things together,

the ricotta, the walnuts, the lemon,

the garlic, the oregano.

Everybody's in there.

And then add the oil.

I think if you had the olive oil in there

at the beginning it might coat some of the ingredients,

so in my mind it would be clumping around the ricotta

and preventing the ricotta from getting

to know all of his dairy fatty sisters, you know?

And then I'm adding this a tablespoon at a time.

I did it where I added it all at once,

and it was just like the olive oil.

There was an olive oil swimming pool.

It was harder to emulsify.

Sometimes you interview chefs about why they do stuff,

and they're like oh, I don't know.

It's just the way I do it.

That's how I feel right now.

Could just add the rest of it.

This feels emulsified.

It's not seasoned yet, but I have pasta timer problems.

Pasta clock-- Oh, that pasta clock.

She's a-tickin'.

I'm going with it now.

Whoo!

That's a long noodle.

Mm, okay.

So it's really just about there.

Turning it off.

You can't really see it.

There's a tiny white point in the center

of the noodle, of the uncooked pasta.

And when you bite into it, it's just impossible to see.

You just have to take my word for it.

It's like the walls of the tunnel where that hole is

are a little bit whiter than the rest of the noodle,

and that's that little al dente point.

All right, that was a good amount of pepper.

Again, with so few ingredients,

all of them are kinda there for a reason

and you should be able to taste them.

I'm gonna add one cup of pasta cooking liquid to this.

It is going to look like a soupy, watery mess.

It's gonna look wrong and bad.

I made this a few times, so you just

have to trust me that I did it

and it all worked out in the end.

This hot water is loosening the sauce, obviously.

The heat, this gentle heat, is blooming all

of the aromatic essences and compounds in the oregano.

It's softening the cheese, so it's gonna emulsify better.

So it's really key.

It's really doing something.

There's chemistry and all kinds

of magic happening over there.

Would you rather an undercooked egg or an overcooked egg.

Oh. 100%.

Wet whites, no way.

Especially about foods.

I shouldn't have asked. [laughs]

Under, thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

Even the whites.

Come on, soft-boiled eggs.

I mean, you could keep going.

If it's over, it's over.

All right, noods, beautiful bucatini right into the bowl.

I want some of that water clinging.

I'm really after the heat of the pasta here.

So now is another moment of trust.

Just follow.

I need blind following.

So the recipe says to toss vigorously

the pasta with this little sauce mixture

that you've made in your bowl, your white pesto.

And you're gonna do it and you're gonna

be like that crazy lady once again

has given me a watery sauce.

It's gonna take two minutes before the pasta water,

the heat, the cheese, and the oil

are all getting to know each other

in this starchy pasta water, emulsified place,

and you will have to keep going.

Two minutes is long enough to feel it in your shoulder.

So remember how watery that was before?

Now look at 'er.

She is a creamy, emulsified magic mess

of beauty and realization, of handmade goodness.

And then at a certain point, it's like stop tossing

'cause the sauce might actually get too thick.

All right, now I think we should

taste it before we serve it.

So the sauce at this point is voluminous and looks generous,

and is generously coating,

and there's a little bit of sliding going around.

It's not too tight.

It's not too loose.

It's coating all the strands.

Could use a little more pepper.

It's zingy from that lemon.

No juice, just the zest.

Great stuff.

Now you can use that whole lemon for something else.

And if it was a Sicilian lemon

that doesn't have any juice, then you're really

in luck because you used the best part of it.

I need a plate. [laughs]

Can we pause for a second?

I need a little more splash.

This is a thing you can do with your own judgment.

The sauce got so emulsified and creamy

that I actually wanna loosen it up a tiny bit.

You have all that pasta water left, so you can do that.

That looks better.

It's more saucy.

Also, different noodles absorb liquid

from a sauce differently.

Please join me for pasta. [laughs]

I thought she'd never ask. A little Parm, my lady?

All right. Yes, please.

If you wanted to find out-- This is so good.

If the people from yesteryear were having

a better life despite having a harder life,

you would smash together the walnuts,

the garlic, the salt,

and some of the olive oil and the Parm.

Sounds fun.

[Carla] If life was harder and more delicious.

I mean, you wouldn't have a phone in the old times,

[Carla laughs]

so I guess it's more just like you need a hobby

to fill in all those hours, so sure.

Right, right, right.

They had a ton of time on their hands. [laughs]

The whole day is in front of me.

How can I make my chores take longer?

Yeah, let's go churn some butter.

Throw the phone away.

Get rid of the food processor,

and just, you know, do it by hand.

It's delicious, right? Delicious.

Yeah. What else are you gonna do?

[Carla] Yeah, what else are you gonna do?

Yeah, we're really going on a rainbow

journey of pestos recently, right?

Did you do the red one?

No, Molly did the red one. Yeah, Molly did the red.

[Carla] I haven't had it yet.

The red, the white, and the green.

The Italian flag. The red was very delicious.

That was like spicy, and it was a whole other vibe.

So you're saying the red pesto

is better than the white pesto.

Was it pounded? Was it pounded? [laughs]

I think it was pounded. Oh, my god.

She's got me.

Cool. Cool.

I'm happy with my nuts and cheese.

I'm happy with my nuts and cheese.

Hand chopping forever.