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Pasta with Richly Aromatic Egg Sauce, and by a Deft Chicken and Vegetable Salad

By Kyle Phillips, About.com

Italian cooking is dynamic; new dishes are invented every day, and here are a couple of fine examples; were you to set these bucatini in front of my father-in-law, whose idea of the perfect pasta sauce is my mother-in-law's sugo alla Bolognese, he'd probably go hungry, and he wouldn't be at all enthusiastic about the salad either. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, would probably enjoy both.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

  • For the first course:
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 sprigs marjoram
  • A bunch of basil
  • 1 tablespoon pickled capers, rinsed
  • 4 small green tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano
  • 2 tablespoons pine nuts (substitute walnut meats if need be)
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 12 ounces (320 g) bucatini
  • --
  • For the second course:
  • 1 pound (450 g) chicken breast, butterflied, boiled and thinly sliced
  • 1/2 pound (225 g) green salad of the kind you most prefer
  • 1/4 cup shredded Parmigiano
  • 1/2 cup croutons
  • 2 small sweet peppers, briefly simmered in a skillet and cut into rounds, discarding ribs and seeds

Preparation:

Begin by putting the eggs in a pot with cold water to cover; bring the water to a boil and cook them for 6 minutes. Cool them under cold running water, peel away the shells, and put the eggs in the blender, together with the basil, and marjoram. Add 1/4 cup olive oil, a pinch of salt, a healthy grinding of pepper, the grated cheese, and blend the mixture until it is creamy.

Toast the pine nuts in a nonstick pan until golden, and turn them out onto a paper towel to cool. Cut the green tomatoes into thin wedges, and add them to the sauce, together with the pine nuts and the capers; mix well.

In the meantime, bring pasta water to a boil, salt it, and cook the bucatini, and prepare the salad by slivering the chicken breast and combining it with the other ingredients. Use a little more than half the sauce to season the pasta, and the remainder to dress the salad, which will be nice with crusty bread. The wine? A white, perhaps a Soave.
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Italian Food

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  6. Menu: Pasta with a Richly Aromatic Egg Sauce, Followed by a Deft Chicken and Vegetable Salad

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