Pasta with Pistachio-Parmesan Cream Sauce

 

I'm usually a red sauce gal when it comes to pasta, but the idea for this cream sauce came to me as I was driving home from the grocery store with one of my household staples, a package of chicken tortellini.  I remembered that I had a basic "pasta con panna" recipe at home that I thought I could manipulate into something new and different.  I love it when a plan comes together. I used my filled tortellini, but you can make to coat your favorite pasta. Will go well with anything.

Buon appetito, y'all!

Pistachio-Parmesan Cream Sauce

1/2 cup shelled pistachios
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup white wine, room temp
1 cup Half and Half or heavy cream, room temp
1/4 cup shredded Paremesan
salt and pepper to taste
cornstarch (optional)

Using a food processor, finely chop the pistachios.  If you don't want nut chunks in your sauce, but still want the flavor, you can process to a nut paste consistency and use that in the sauce.  Set aside.

In a medium size pan, saute minced garlic with olive oil over medium high heat until translucent and fragrant.

Pour in white wine and bring mixture to a boil.  Allow to cook until wine is reduced by half. The reduction will intensify the flavor.

Whisk in cream until well blended.  Make sure your cream is not cold when you add it to the pan, otherwise it will curdle and you don't want cream chunks in your sauce.

Whisk in shredded paremesan until melted and blended into sauce.

Add in the pistachios, and still until evenly spread throughout the sauce.  If you went with the nut paste, whisk in until well blended.  Salt and pepper to taste.

OPTIONAL -- if you want a slightly thicker sauce (like I did), spoon out 2 tsp of the liquidy sauce and mix with 1 tsp of cornstarch.  Pour mixture back into the sauce pan and bring to a quick boil.  When it starts to thicken, remove from heat and set aside.

Boil up a batch of your favorite pasta according to directions, rinse, drain, add sauce and enjoy.  Garnish with rough chopped pistachios and/or Parmesan.