Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Make me! Penne with
Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Sauce

As I was flipping through one of my new cookbooks, The Best of Chef at Home: Essential Recipes for Today's Kitchen by Chef Michael Smith, the recipe jumped off the page and said: Make me, immediately!
   It was Penne with Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Sauce (click for the recipe).
   What prompted me most to make it was Smith’s introduction to the recipe, in which he said his friends request this dish all the time.
   This intrigued me – what recipe could be so good that you’d ask a world-renown chef like Smith to make it for you as opposed to letting him surprise you with his latest magical dish?
   The second reason I was prompted to make it was how easy it looked to make.
   I was right about that. I made the dish on my own and it took about 25 minutes without rushing.
   The ingredients were also a draw: Cream cheese, fresh dill and smoked salmon. It sounded as if the dish would be like a yummy bagel in pasta form.
   I’m glad I listened to that “make me” recipe voice, because this was indeed a lovely dish.
   It would work well at a dinner party, which is what Smith suggests in his intro, but it is easy enough to make on a work night.
   We found smoked salmon in the seafood section of a local supermarket. Both fresh and frozen was available; we used fresh.
   Penne pasta (I like Catelli Smart) is boiled until al dente.
   After the pasta is drained, it’s put back in the pot. While the pasta is still steaming hot, softened cream cheese, fresh dill, green onions (scallions), the juice and zest (finely-grated peel) of one lemon, Dijon mustard and capers are stirred in until the cheese melts and forms a creamy sauce.
   After the sauce forms, the smoked salmon, which has been cut into ribbons, is stirred in.
   Serve immediately



1 comment:

Sally said...

Great information! I enjoyed this one, and many of the other posts you've been putting out lately.