Ever have one of those days where the only thing that gets you through is knowing you are going to have a good meal later on?  I have no idea where I read about this dish, but one day, trying to unwind after a long, frustrating and tiring day of putting out the fires that are usually started by teenage drama (I moonlight as a school counselor, in case you forgot), a mental picture of this dish formed in my head and I immediately went to the store to try and make it.  This dish is definitely not for the nut-hater.   But, maybe it could be?  As a girl who used to eat peanut butter on a spoon every day for breakfast (I’ve now matured to peanut butter spread on multigrain toast), this dish made me very, very happy.

It’s not surprising that Pollo en Salsa de Cacahuate  is a traditional dish from Puebla, Mexico.  Puebla is often thought of as the gastronomic mecca of Central Mexico and happens to be the birthplace of mole, that beautiful, dark, chocolatey sauce made of over thirty ingredients including nuts and seeds, and pipians, another sweet yet savory sauce using ground nuts and seeds.  Peanuts have been part of Mexican cooking since long before Spain invaded in the 15th century and are often used as a thickening agent.  Poblano cuisine, specifically,  is typically made of indigenous and local ingredients and, let me tell you, Pueblo is on my “must go” lists of places to travel to (and eat, eat, eat in).

Traditionally, this dish should be made with dried chiles.  We used dried chiles in ours and I really just wanted to kick it up, so I added some chipotles in adobo.  For me, it added extra spice and the adobo added more flavor than the dried chiles did. In fact, I think you could leave out the dried chiles if you don’t have any on hand and just add some chipotles in adobo. It’s rare I’ll move away from the traditional but, in this case, flavor-wise I think it would be ok.  I also did not make this in a mortar and pestle and, again, although not traditional, a blender worked just fine.

As with a few other fellow bloggers, we were lucky to receive one of my favorite “blog freebies” to try recently – truffle products by La Boutique de la Truffe.  Cha-ching!  As some know, for most of us, blogging will barely help us buy a cup of coffee at a year’s end – that is if you have an ad up.  When we get offered to test out powdered sauces (gag) we usually pass, but when truffles were offered I jumped up and down like a little schoolgirl.  I know truffles seem to be that annoying foodie buzz word that gets all us food-lovers screaming like Beatles fans in the 60’s, but I still say they are worth the hype.  It is obvious we like them – a lot.  You’ll find truffle recipes all over We Are Never Full: like here and here and here. And if you indulge and buy something from La Boutique, it is an investment and one that will pay off in big flavor that really can not be duplicated any other way.

La Boutique de Truffe started in 2003 by a French immigrant, Cèline Labaune, who had a “passion for truffles” (straight from the media kit).  Why am I telling you this? Because if I am going to spend $35 for a 3-ounce pot of truffles, it helps to buy them from 1) someone who is passionate about them and 2) someone who is French and knows her stuff.  It used to be very difficult to get good quality truffle products here in the US and I can say, without hesitation, that the truffle products we received from La Boutique were very good.  Yes, it is still expensive but a little does go a long way.

For this quick dish (bite me Rachel Ray – this is a real 30 minute meal), we paired the nice truffles with an easy cream sauce with walnuts and bought fresh ravioli from our local Italian shop. If you don’t have a local Italian shop, it’s ok, you can use your favorite store-bought variety or even make your own. To top the ravioli, we only used a small amount of the Truffle Carpaccio we were lucky to try out.  While we were in Italy a while ago, we purchased a few white and black truffle products at an amazing store (where we dropped quite a few euro at, but it was worth it) -  Tartufi Morra in Alba.  For much more than La Boutique charges, we purchased an excellent tube of white truffle paste which lasted us more than a year – and which we sadly finished up with this dish.  I recommend buying this one from the La Boutique website – it is super strong and really, really lasts.

You could wow a few guests with this super simple dish – they’ll feel special because they’ll think you spent a lot of money on them but, in reality, per person it’s not a real bank-breaker.  But they don’t have to know… right?

So, lately we’ve been experiencing a certain degree of apathy with regard to food. Maybe it’s the time of year or the grind of work, either way, it’s not a great place to be for us, and hopefully somewhere we will leave soon. Nonetheless, sometimes inspiration can strike, and delicious, seasonal citrus fruit can be the spark.

Now, I use the word inspiration somewhat liberally here because really, all this dish is, is lightly fried monkfish medallions over a mix of Israeli and regular couscous. The “inspired bit”, if you will, is the sauce, an olive oil, tangerine, and Marcona almond emulsion.

Fried Monkfish Medallions with Mixed Couscous & Almond Sauce

Ingredients

• 1lb monkfish tail, sliced into 1 inch (2.5cm) medallions
• 3oz Israeli couscous
• 3oz regular (or flavored) couscous
• 1 large bunch white chard or escarole (chicory)
• 2tbsp golden raisins
• 6 tbsp whole marcona or other whole large almonds (1 tbsp chopped)
• 3oz your best extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tangerine, supremed, and juiced
• 1 handful good black, or kalamata, olives
• 3tbsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 12 oz vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4tbsp plain flour
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Recipe

1. Cook couscous with stock according to directions on package, or eyeball it if you’re feeling fancy.
2. In a blender grind all but 1 tbsp almonds, before drizzling in olive oil and tangerine juice. Taste and correct seasoning accordingly.
3. When couscous is cooked, stir in parsley, olives and remaining lemon juice. Correct seasoning if necessary.
4. Heat a frying pan to medium-high and add 2 tbsp regular olive oil
5. Sprinkle with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice, before dredging monkfish medallions in flour and egg.
6. Gently fry monkfish until golden brown on all sides, and remove to a cooling rack.
7. Add another tbsp olive oil to pan and add chard. Sweat until limp before adding golden raisins, tangerine segments and the chopped almonds.
8. Arrange all these delicious elements artfully on a plate before wolfing it down with a chilled Albarino.

Usually if I’m trying to make an authentic dish, I always try to make it just that – authentic. That means that I want to use traditional ingredients and I attempt to research the many traditional ways to make that specific dish. I then decide how to combine the best bits from all those traditional recipes and create one recipe. Well, this traditional, old Castillian dish is always made with almonds – more specifically the beautiful Marcona almonds which are bigger and sweeter and more delicious (to me) than the almonds we know here in America. As Penelope Casas writes, “(Pollo en Pepitoria) combines all of the ingredients most often associated with Spanish cooking – garlic, saffron, sherry and almonds – into an unusually savory sauce.” DOH! As I began cooking, I could have sworn I had a fresh bag of almonds to work with only to find that it was a bag of fresh hazelnuts. Could I swap? Yeah… could I call it authentic on my blog… nope. What I can tell you is substituting hazelnuts in this dish for almonds does not actually change the flavor all that much. But the thing that I really decided to do to completely different from the traditional dish was to actually coat the pieces of chicken in hazelnuts and lightly saute them until crispy on the outside and finished them in the oven to keep it moist inside. You all like it moist, right? But, dear readers, you must know that traditionally you would just roll pieces of chicken with the bone in in some seasoned flour and saute them just like that in olive oil.

So, do I have a right to really call this dish Pollo en Pepitoria? Probably not. Do I hate when idiots like Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee completely remake an authentic classic an continue calling it by it’s authentic name but it doesn’t even resemble the original dish? YES. Am I being a bit of a hypocrite right now – uh-huh. Do I care? Not really. It’s only because I’ve been wanting to post this recipe for about 2 months now and it’s 75 degrees and sunny and I want to get outside. Creative juices ain’t a-flowing.

So here’s Pollo en Pepitoria “Kinda”. That’s as creative as it’s gonna get today, kids. Have a beautiful weekend!

If you’re interested, please check out one of our favorite blogs about Spain, all things Spanish and life in Spain – Notes from Spain – a few years ago they posted a recipe for Pollo en Pepitoria.

POLLO EN PEPITORIA “KINDA” – CHICKEN IN A SAFFRON, FINO AND HAZELNUT SAUCE (serves 6)

Ingredients:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup flour (seasoned with a bit of salt)
• 2 eggs, beaten + tablespoon of water
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups chopped hazelnuts (to coat chicken) + 1/4 cup of finely ground hazelnuts (to add to sauce)
• olive oil or vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced or sliced
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1/4 cup of dry sherry (fino)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• pinch of fresh grated nutmeg
• pinch of saffron
• salt and pepper
• Optional: 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped, for garnish

What to do:

1. Heat your oven up to 425 degrees and season your chicken breasts with salt and pepper.
2. Make sure you slightly crush or run a sharp knife through your hazelnuts (the 1 1/2 to 2 cups called for to coat the chicken) in order to make sure they are able to stick to the chicken breasts. Have your ‘coating station’ ready by putting flour on the first plate, the beaten egg mixed with water on the second plate and the chopped hazelnuts spread out on the third plate.
3. Heat up about 1/4 inch of oil in an oven-safe pan or skillet on medium heat. Dip each chicken breast first in the flour (dust off any major excess), then the egg and finally roll around in the crushed hazelnuts. Add to your hot oil and cook on each side for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side. You want the hazelnuts to seal on to the chicken, but not to burn. Check after a minute and then, if necessary, continue to saute for another 30 seconds or so. If there’s not enough room in your pan to cook all the chicken breasts at once (don’t overcrowd!!), do it in batches and just reserve the chicken on the side until all are sauteed.
4. When the chicken has been cooked on both sides and the hazelnuts have adhered, put in your 425 degree oven and allow to cook for another 10-13 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken. If the chicken is done before you sauce, just remove from oven and allow to chill out on the side for a bit. It’s ok if it gets cool.



5. Make your sauce by adding the chopped onion, garlic and carrot to some olive oil in a pan and allow to saute on medium to medium-low for about 4 or 5 minutes till they get a bit soft.
6. After they cook till they are a bit softer, add your fino and scrape up some of the bits on the bottom of the pan. After about a minute, add your chicken broth, nutmeg, saffron, bay leaf and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes.



7. While the vegetables are busy getting soft, in a blender or food processor (or with a good old mallet), blitz the 1/4 cup of hazelnuts till finely ground… I mean finely kids! Remove to a bowl until they are needed.
8. Optional: Boil two eggs for 8 minutes to hard-boil. When done, remove and place in cold water, allowing them to cool. De-shell and chop up for the garnish.
9. When 10 minutes or so has passed and you’ve tested the carrots for softness, REMOVE THE BAY LEAF and add everything from the pan to a blender or food processor. Blitz this mixture until smooth. Add the blitzed sauce back to the pan and keep warm on low-medium heat. Add the finely ground hazelnuts to the sauce and stir in – this will act as a thickener.

+

10. Add your hazelnut-coasted chicken breast to the sauce and place back in your oven for 4 minutes to allow the chicken to come back to temperature if necessary. When it’s out of the oven, sprinkle the top with the chopped hard-boiled egg and enjoy!

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• WATERCRESS & RICOTTA RAVIOLI WITH A RADICCHIO BUTTER SAUCE
• GNOCCHI DI PATATE WITH A BROWN BUTTER, SAGE, BREADCRUMB SAUCE
• ITALIAN-STYLE SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE
• Truffled Butter: A Prince Among Ideas
• Pork Roll and Scrapple – The Dirty Culinary Pride of South Jersey/Philly
• Diversity Finally Comes to The Food Network

There are a handful of things that have made Genoa famous, amongst them pesto and Christopher Columbus. Interestingly, in all the many, many stories told by Scheherazade (to persuade the emir not to have her killed) in the Arabian Nights, the only European city to be mentioned is Genoa. And, when you visit the city it is immediately apparent why Arabs, used to the mazy streets of the souks of North Africa and the Middle East, could base tales of intrigue and deception there.

Set on the side of a series of steep hillsides on Italy’s Ligurian coast, Genoa (Genova) has remarkably medieval feel to it with its rabbit-warren streets lined tightly with buildings that prevent sunlight from reaching the ground. This, together with the soupy local patios with its French and Portugese inflections, and you almost feel like you’ve left modern Italy and arrived somewhere in the 13th century.

All of which sounds terribly romantic and redolent of mystery and adventure, and, well, it is, except when you’re entering the city at rush hour without a clear idea of where your hotel is, and you desperately need to pee after a three hour drive. Happily though, once installed in our B & B and fortified by a few glasses of wine – hastily thrown back, we began exploring the city’s mazy streets in the growing dusk, emerging periodically, like moles from a hole, onto a variety of piazzas wondering how the hell we got there, and thoroughly enjoying it.

Eventually, we found some semblance of bearings, so that the next day we managed to locate a restaurant our host had recommended for its typical Genoese cuisine for lunch. The previous evening, we had dined on fried fresh anchovies and langostines near the harbor, and so that lunchtime we were looking for pasta. Call me predictable, but I had to have pesto, you know the basic pesto made just out of basil, pine nuts, parmigiano-reggiano and olive oil, so I ordered spinach tagliatelle with pesto alla Genovese. Amy, though, went for another Genovese specialty, ravoili with walnut cream sauce or salsa di noci.

Now, it’s not uncommon for us to rave on about something perfectly simple, and indeed, patient readers, this dish is precisely that, but at the same time, and as you probably know, we don’t get all worked up over nothing. This sauce really is a badass. Trust us, we wouldn’t steer you wrong. In fact, the only thing that could have made the remake – recipe below – as enjoyable as the original we ate in Genoa, would be if we could have placed another table in our apartment and installed the wiry, old gent who sat opposite us at it.

PASTA WITH SALSA DI NOCI (WALNUT SAUCE) AND MUSHROOMS (Serves 3-4)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups walnuts, boiled for 25 minutes
• 1 cup of parmigiano reggiano
• 1/4 cup lite cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 slices white bread soaked in milk
• 1 pack of mushrooms (your choice – we used white button)
• salt and pepper
• 1 pound pasta (we used long fusilli)
• optional: fresh thyme for garnish
• blender or food processor

What to do:

1. This is so easy to make, I could cry. Boil your walnuts for 25 minutes to remove some of the bitterness and soften. Drain and set aside.
2. On a plate or in a deep dish, soak two pieces of crustless, cheap white bread in some milk so it soaks it all up. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or so.
3. Get out your blender or food processor. Throw on some extra salted water to boil for the pasta.
4. In a pan, add your sliced mushrooms along with some olive oil or a pat of butter and saute until firm-soft.
5. Blitz the walnuts until fine first then blend all the rest of the ingredients together : the milk-soaked bread, the walnuts, the cheese, milk and cream along with a pinch of salt to taste. Add your pasta to the boiling water and cook till al dente.
6. Add the sauce to the pan with the cooked mushrooms, stir and warm on low for a bit. When pasta is done, add a bit of the pasta water to the sauce (maybe 3 tablespoons at most) and then add your drained pasta to the warming walnut sauce. Toss.
7. Plate your pasta and top with some fresh thyme, a bit of freshly ground pepper and some extra parmigiano. Enjoy with a big glass of red wine.

Regular readers will know that we are big fans of the phenomenon that is cabrales cheese (non-regular readers should read this post before proceeding any further with this one, as it’s important to know the ingredient you’re dealing with) but we’ve yet to include it in any of our cooking. Here was an opportunity to incorporate perhaps the world’s wildest cheese into a dish so cunning that, to mix a metaphor, you could cut yourself on it.

Seriously, you might think I’m exaggerating here, but quite apart from that not being what we do here at We Are Never Full (we keep it real, believe), I am not exaggerating one bit. This was the best salad I’ve had in a very, very long time. And, while we wouldn’t normally insult your intelligence by pretending to tell you how to put a salad together, we’re asking you to bear with us here and read on. You’ll be glad you did.

We’ve decided to submit this recipe to Kalyn at Kalyn’s Cooking (a most excellent blog) for her Weekend Herb Blogging series. This time around it’s being hosted by Jugalbandi, so head over there before 3PM today to submit yours!

Ensalada de Cabrales (for 2 people)

Ingredients

1 large apple – gala, fuji, granny smith, golden delicious, but not McIntosh type

2oz strong cabrales or your favorite blue cheese

3 hazelnuts (shelled, roasted, but unsalted)

1tbsp good cider vinegar

3tbsp your best olive oil

1 tsp finely chopped chives

salt & black pepper

Recipe

Peel and core apple, then using a mandolin (if you have one, otherwise your trusty chef’s knife will suffice) slice the apple to a uniform thickness of about 1/4 inch (1/2cm)

Arrange apples on serving dish however you like and crumble over the cheese. Feel free to use more, but you easily be over-generous with cabrales, so beware.

Combine oil, vinegar, salt & pepper (as a vinaigrette) and spoon liberally over apples and cheese.

Then, take your microplane grater or the fine side of your box grater and grate your hazelnuts. Sprinkle this “hazelnut salt” followed by the chives over your salad and serve immediately.

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY:

• SWEET ANISE-FLAVORED SALMON IN A POUCH (SALMON EN PAPILLOTE)
• CLAMS WITH WHITE WINE AND CHORIZO
• WINE-BRAISED LAMB SHANKS WITH ROSEMARY AND THYME IN PRESSURE COOKER GNOCCHI DI PATATE WITH A BROWN BUTTER, SAGE, BREADCRUMB SAUCE
• Fabada: A Mortal and Corporal Sin – But Worth It!
• Jamon, Jamon
• Vermut (Vermouth): Rediscovering an Old Classic

During the cook-a-thon that was the weekend before Christmas, in which my wife and I got our first real glimpse of just how hard professional chefs have to work, I turned out something of a rarity for me, and thus far, unique to this blog – a dessert. Touring the food blogosphere (hmm, starting to dislike that word almost as much as the word “foodie”), we notice that there are a lot of bakers out there with all kinds of recipes for coconut cake, brownies, muffins, crumbles, brittles and pies, in sharp contrast to our savory-only approach. The reason is that neither my wife nor I are hugely into sweets. I mean, we like them, but the prospect of making a cake and eating the whole things ourselves is off-putting because we know we’ll be sick of it after a couple of slices. For example, a month or so ago, I was craving muffins one Sunday and so I made a dozen cranberry muffins. I ate two that day and recently found the rest of them sporting blue and green hair styles that would have made the Sex Pistols jealous as they moldered away in a cake tin.

So, I must tell you that I am not the world’s best baker, which I hope is of some consolation to the food fans among you who daren’t bake because it seems too daunting a prospect. And, on the few occasions I do get my dander up and decide it’s time to butcher another recipe my mother could have turned out perfectly in her sleep, it is often bread (I refer to my comments about the lack of good bread in America below), and sometimes scones or muffins. Only very, very occasionally, will I try a pie or a tart. In fact, I think the last time I made a pie was about six months ago. It was a French apple tart and I made it with no rolling pin, no spatula and no oven, and the pain of making it has put me off trying another dessert since. (Needless to say, said tart had more in common visually with the face of a particularly zitty teenager than the recipe I was following.) But this past weekend, full of the festive spirit, and perhaps a couple of lunchtime sherries, I decided that since we were up to our elbows in eggs and flour (for the pasta) I might as well make a pie.

Riffing off the recipe for the French apple tart, (but replete with the right tools for the job this time), I skipped the apples and replaced them with a chestnut puree that I’d found at the supermarket in a dusty old can and bought on impulse. I always associate chestnuts with Christmas whether they’re in a stuffing, simply fire-roasted and cracked with a glass of sherry, or used in desserts because to me they impart one of the signature scents of the season. Real bakers, if you’ve bothered reading this far, feel free to smirk, or even guffaw, because all this really was was a pasty crust slathered with pastry cream (similar to a creme anglaise, or to you British readers, just vanilla custard), and then topped with the chestnut puree and finished with a shake of powdered sugar. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of the sliced tart, so I’ve made a really weak attempt to recreate it in cross-section in photoshop (see above). Honestly though, in a season when a lot of desserts are heavy, full of seasoned, dried fruits, candied ginger and other spices, this one, if not exactly light given the butter and eggs, is clean-tasting, simple and straight-forward to prepare, and, perhaps most importantly to me, was widely acknowledged to be a success, which increases the chances that I’ll make it again some time. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

For the sweet pastry dough:
1/2 cup (4oz) room temperature unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups of all-purpose (plain) flour, sifted
1 whole egg
1/2 cup confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/8 tsp baking powder

For the pastry cream/custard:
2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean or 2-3 tsp of vanilla essence
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp plain flour, sifted
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
6 to 8 tablespoons of chestnut puree

4 egg yolks

Recipe:
For the pastry:

For the pastry cream/custard::

Assembling it:

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY:

• ROASTED PORK SHOULDER (Pernil) – The Low and Slow Method
• TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE (Sausages Nested in Batter)
• HORNAZO (Spanish Sausage-Stuffed Easter Bread)
• LIDIA’S LAMB CHOPS (Lamb Chops with A Mustard Anchovy Sauce)
• LEBANESE-SPICED LAMB OVER CRISPY PITA WITH CHICKPEAS, PINENUTS, POMEGRANATE SEEDS SMOTHERED IN GARLIC YOGURT SAUCE

Here is a picture of the meal at Summertime:

Recently, Jonny and I were looking through our pictures and I saw the one of the meal I had in Capoliveri and decided to try and recreate it.

Here’s a picture of our recreation:

It turned out great!! We didn’t have a recipe, but what I made was pretty close to the real thing. The main difference is the pistachios – we used white pistachios, hence the difference in color. This recipe I’ve come to learn is Sicilian in it’s roots where they grow and use them often in cooking. The Sicilian pistachio is much greener, stronger and sharper in flavor. Have you ever tasted the pistachio gelato in Italy? You’ll know what I mean about the flavor being different if you have.

I’d love someone else to try this recipe at home. It’s super easy (except the hour it takes to shell those freaking pistachios!!) and it’s extremely rich and filling. You could use the sauce on any type of pasta, but I love it on a long, thick pasta. The flavor may not be pleasing to everyone due to it’s sweet and saltiness, but to me it was an extremely eye-opening and surprising dish.

BUCATINI WITH PISTACHIO SAUCE:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. box of bucatini (you can also use any other long, thick pasta)
• about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of whole, shelled pistachios PLUS a large handfull, roughly chopped, reserved for the garnish
• 6-8 anchovies (I’m telling you, I hated anchovies until about 6 months ago… the saltiness of them make this dish. You can omit the extra 4 I ask you to add at the end if you really don’t like the flavor of anchovies, but please try using them when making the sauce)
• 1 small onion
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (we love garlic, so we usually add more than necessary)
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups of toasted breadcrumbs
• grated parmigiano reggiano
• one anisette-flavored biscotti (this was the ’secret ingredient’ I figured out in the dish I ate in Italy)

How to Make the Dish:

1. Boil water for your pasta – make sure it’s salted heavily and you put a bit of olive oil in it too!
2. Dice up your onion and chop your garlic (don’t worry too much about the size cause your gonna end up blitzing it)
3. Heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan
4. Saute your onion until translucent, add your garlic and saute until soft (about 1-2 minutes)
5. Whip out your handy mixer/food processor. Add your sauteed onions and garlic in there along with all your pistachios (not the ones I asked you to reserve for the garnish). Add a half of cup of olive oil to start. BLITZ IT – pulse it if you want. You’ll want it to resemble a thick sauce… almost like a pesto. If you need to add more olive oil so that it’s not exactly a paste, but more like a thick sauce, please do.
6. Add your bucatini to the boiling water and cook till al dente (I’ve recently figured out that if you subtract one to two minutes from the cooking directions on the box of pasta, you’ll almost always get perfectly al dente pasta!)
7. Pour yourself a glass of wine and relax for a few minutes
8. Rough chop those extra handful of pistachios
9. Heat up another pan and lightly toast your breadcrumbs – reserve on the side after they are toasted
10. Add your pistachio sauce back to the sautee pan and put heat on low-medium. When the sauce is warming, add 3 anchovies. Watch them melt into to sauce and stir.
11. When your pasta is finished cooking, add the pasta with a slotted spoon to your warming pistachio sauce. Toss in a tablespoon or two of the pasta cooking water.
12. Add a pinch of salt if necessary (taste first, those ‘chovies can be mighty salty as is) and pepper, a decent handful of parmigiano cheese and the toasted breadcrumbs. Rough chop 3-4 extra anchovies and add them to the pasta. TOSS the pasta.
13. Plate your pasta. Sprinkle some of the roughly chopped pistachios on top and then using a cheese grater, grate some of your anisette flavored biscotti on top. VOILA!! Enjoy with a nice bottle of vino.

And that’s it! A rich, satisfying dish.