Some of my favorite recipes come from vegetable farmers. These dishes tend to be veggie-forward, local, and seasonal. They usually come together quickly and can satisfy the voracious bellies of hard-working, hungry crews. In winter, when not much is in season, farmy dishes will be geared toward preserved or stored ingredients in the freezer, pantry, or root cellar.
Carrot pasta is always in season because fresh, local carrots are always available year-round, either in the ground or in storage. But this recipe shines especially bright during the dark days of winter, when the seasonal pickings are slim.
Farm cooks pass around recipes like heirloom seeds, with each kitchen acting as a pristine habitat in which a recipe can evolve. My friend Josh learned today’s carrot pasta recipe from our friend Luci in a very short phone conversation, and immediately went his merry way with it. Luci had learned it from her sister’s ex-husband, Ernesto, who had learned it from his mom in Milan. Josh immediately changed the recipe to fit his own personality and circumstances.
He has no prep cook, but a full cleanup crew. These circumstances allow him to tornado through the kitchen and let others deal with the consequences. Luci, meanwhile, is more of a clean-as-you-go type, and her method affords ample time to do so. If she needs a chopper, she’ll rope anyone within shouting range—which is quite a large area given her sizable lung capacity. By that time Josh, all by his lonesome with a podcast playing, will have already grated a load of carrots in a Cuisinart.
Carrot pasta—or pasta carota, as they would say in Milan—is like dinner and dessert in every bite. It delivers a creamy aromatic sweetness inside a savory sauce that is rich but light. The richness comes from a glorious redundancy of fatty ingredients, including olive oil, milk, cream, and butter. Simmering together these luscious lipids dissolves the cheese. And the lightness comes from the puffy carrot paste, which delivers faint whiffs of summertime. This sauce is the heart of this dish, and the stovetop-braised carrots are the heart of the sauce. The braising takes a while, but once you have a stash of braised carrots on hand, it’s nothing to whip up a carrot sauce and cook up a quick batch of pasta carota on the spot.
Pasta Carota
The meat and anchovy paste are optional, but the parsley at the end is less so. It isn’t just a splash of green garnish. Parsley is a cousin to carrot, and the two flavors interact ethereally.
Big noodles such as rigatoni are best for carrying this decadent sauce, filling the tubular cavities and making the noodles taste like savory cream-stuffed cannoli.
Serves 4
- 2 pounds peeled carrots
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 cup milk
- 6 ounces grated Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup mayo or veganaise
- Red pepper flakes, to taste
- 1 teaspoon thyme or Italian seasonings
- A few pinches of ground nutmeg
- 4 large cloves garlic, pressed, minced, or crushed
- 1 teaspoon anchovy paste (optional)
- 1/2 cup to 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 pound ground Italian sausage (or other meat)
- 1 pound rigatoni
- 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
Cut the carrots into coins. Add them to a heavy-bottomed pan with the olive oil and cook on low for about an hour, covered with a heavy lid. Stir occasionally to scrape the bottom and check the moisture content. Carrots release water as they cook, and they will simmer gently in the bubbling mix of olive oil and water. When the moisture inevitably runs out, add the milk and a cup of water. Bring to a boil on medium heat and simmer for another hour on low.
Add the cheese, butter, mayo, pepper flakes, thyme, nutmeg, half of the garlic, and anchovy paste, if using, and let the sauce simmer with the lid on, stirring every 20 minutes or so. If it starts to get stiff, add another cup of water and keep simmering until the cheese dissolves.
Finally, add the cream. Season with salt and black pepper and mix it—but not too much, according to Luci’s husband, who said: “When the carrot coins have almost turned into a paste, at the very end, you add the cream. It’s like when you add milk to hot cereal but don’t totally mix it. The oil is floating on the cream, and the cream isn’t integrated.”
I have nibbled upon those unmixed, creamed, falling-apart carrot coins myself; I share his enchantment. However, there is no doubt that the sauce coats the noodles better if you liquefy it first with an immersion blender.
Josh is usually more pressed for time and consequently has a quicker version of the sauce. He grates the carrots, which allows them to cook in about 45 minutes. Prepare as above, under a heavy lid, with a mix of milk and water to prevent the pan from drying out, and add cheese, butter, mayo, spices, garlic, anchovy paste, cream, salt, and pepper to finish it off.
Cook the ground Italian sausage in a pan until browned. Set aside.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the noodles. Drain and toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil and the other half of the minced garlic. In a large bowl, mix together the noodles, sauce, parsley, and meat. Serve.
