Who likes purple pasta? You will!
So I was talking to a co-worker, Kyle, and he told me about a friend who boiled pasta using a bottle of wine instead of water. Apparently she loved the taste and the appearance of her meal and was able to find a new use for red wine.
Well, I wanted to know more. After researching on Google, I found that the dish, called “Drunken Pasta” or “Pasta All'Ubriaco” is pretty popular. It was news to me and I wanted to try it, so I ran over to Running Vines Winery to get a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon, their most popular red, and a bottle of Triathlon (For drinking, not cooking. It’s my favorite).
I found a recipe by Rachel Ray that was pretty easy and called for many ingredients that I already had on hand. The only thing I didn’t have was prosciutto and dinosaur kale. <- Say what?
I followed the directions and used the ENTIRE bottle of wine in the process. Rachel said that I had to boil the pasta in a bottle of red wine and an equal amount of water. I saved a glass for the boyfriend because he likes red wine and therefore had to reduce the amount of water.
While the pasta boiled I sautéed some pepperoni slices (substitute for prosciutto) in olive oil and then spooned in some garlic, or as Emeril Lagasse says, “Gahlic.”
Much love, Emeril.
I reserved a ½ cup of the pasta wine/water, the recipe called for a cup but the pasta soaked up most of the liquid so I couldn’t even drain it. Then I put the pasta back in the pot it was boiled in and dumped the pepperoni-gahlic-olive oil mixture in. I followed this with lots of finely shredded Parmesan and Havarti cheese.
I prepared two bowls of pretty purple pasta and topped it with more cheese. It was a cheese blizzard, friends.
The verdict for this: the boyfriend and I agreed that it was a visually pleasing dish and it had decent flavor. The wine did it's job but I’m going to use a different recipe next time because I think I can top this. I think the pasta might be good with a garlic cream sauce.
It’s great as leftovers, FYI. Just add a little water to the pasta and stick it in the microwave for a few minutes.