What to do with Arugula

What the heck is arugula?  That was my reaction the first time I heard it mentioned.  Arugula was something  I'd never heard of until I was grown.  Of course, as a food inspector I learned about all sorts of vegetables and leafy greens that were unheard of in my small town Southern upbringing.  Even though I knew what it was, we'd never had it unless it was in a salad mix at a restaurant.


Arugula is a green that has been popular in France and Italy for a long time.  It has a peppery or mustard like flavor that adds a spicy kick when used in a salad.  It is also a good low calorie source of several vitamins, vitamin K in particular.  Most of the recipes I've found for arugula have been for salads but there are a few for cooking them.  I found one for a white bean and arugula soup that I'm anxious to try.


We had our first hard cold snap of the winter earlier this week.  I went out to cover the more susceptible of the Fall garden plants and ran short of coverings.  Three hills of arugula and two of kohlrabi couldn't be covered so they got harvested.  We have lots of arugula because when we found the sets at a nursery they were rather small and spindly so I got 2 of the 4 packs.  Well, with the wet warm Fall we've had they exploded.  Now that I had 3 hills worth of arugula in the refrigerator, what was I going to do with them?  After all, the good wife and I can't eat that much salad.


I decided to use part of them in a pasta dish to take advantage of their sharp peppery flavor.  I also wanted the arugula to just be wilted rather than cooked to maintain some texture and more of the nutrients and flavor.  To that end I decided on fettuccini and arugula with mushrooms and pancetta.


Now, if you've looked around here much, you know I cure my own pancetta and make most of my own pasta.  While I encourage you to try your hand at them both, if you get good quality products from the store they'll work just as well.  Of the 4 primary ingredients, I grew or made 3 of them.  Alas, I still haven't taken to growing my own mushrooms.


Fettuccini with Arugula


1 lb fettuccine
4 oz thick cut pancetta, diced
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
4 cups arugula, cut/torn to bite size pieces
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs butter
salt
pepper


Fry pancetta in a skillet.  Remove the pancetta and add the mushrooms to the skillet with the pancetta grease.  Cook until lightly browned and add the garlic.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Remove from heat.  Cook fettuccini in a pot of boiling well salted water.  Once the fettuccini is nearly done, add the pancetta back to the skillet and bring up the heat.  When fettuccini is almost al dente, pull it from the water and place in the skillet with the pancetta and mushrooms.  Turn to combine the components.  Melt the butter in the skillet and add a couple of ladles of the pasta water, about 1 cup.  Stir the skillet contents until the butter and pasta water form a sauce that covers everything.  Add the arugula to the skillet and turn the contents with tongs to evenly distribute the arugula and wilt the leaves.  Remove from heat and serve.




Fettuccini with Arugula

We topped the dish with a bit of grated parmesan cheese.  I didn't make any, but this would be good with some hot crusty bread with butter or olive oil


The only real new thing I did with this dish is add the arugula.  Part of the reason I made this is so we could more accurately judge the affect of the arugula.  We were quite pleased with it.  The good wife did say she would have liked a bit more arugula in hers.  Next time I'll use 5 - 6 cups of arugula and just add it to the pasta in batches.


If you've not tried arugula or have only had it in salads, give this dish a try.  It's simple and quick and an easy way to feed 4 people.  Give this a try and let me know what you think.


Uncle T