Pork Au Poivre, Cherry Pasta

After recently reading about a blueberry pasta via Chicken in Every Granny Cart, I've been experimenting with fruit based pasta for the last few weeks.  I know.  The idea of a fruit pasta makes your eyebrows scrunch together and, let me guess, your eyes are now squinting.... and maybe you're even wrinkling your nose in skepticism. 

I've seen it before.

But then I serve the fruit pastas I've made...and...they're a hit.  You may have seen the recipe for peach penne I made recently.  That inspired continued experimentation, this time with cherries.  My goal was to have a small bite of pasta explode with fresh cherry flavor, while avoiding an overly reduced cherry/syrupy pasta. Ick. To compliment the cherry pasta, I went with a boldly flavor meat.  I chose a lean pork loin, but decided to coat the pork in crushed black peppercorns to add a bold, spicy flavor to balance the fruity pasta.

The key to making this cherry pasta is to create a puree of the fresh fruit.  Remove the pits and the stems from the cherries, then puree them in a food processor with a touch of olive oil, a pinch of salt and some ground pepper.  After cooking the pasta as you normally would, place a conservative amount of the cherry puree into a pan on low heat.  Add the pasta to the puree and coat.  You want to generously coat the pasta but too much of the fruit puree will turn this idea into a mess. I used 1/4 lb cherries for about a touch under 1/2 lb of farfalline pasta. As in any pasta dish, the cherries are a condiment for the pasta, not a sauce. Start conservatively in terms of how much fruit you add to the pasta, you can always add more...just keep folding the puree in as you go. I finished the pasta with some parmigiano reggiano and a bit of mint.  More fruit pastas to come, I'm sure....

Comments

[ann]

that's awesome Joe!
i'm glad the gospel of savory fruit entrees is seeing so much light of day!