Pasta con Cinque formaggi e el Pancetta

Pasta with Five Cheeses and Pancetta

This is not your kids mac and cheese but they will love it too. You can adjust quantities according to your personal taste.

You will need:
Parmesan Cheese – shredded – 1/2 cup
Mozzarella Cheese – 1/2 cup (use fresh not smoked)
Asiago Cheese – shredded – 1/2 cup
Fontina Cheese – shredded – 1/2 cup
Gorgonzola Cheese – 1/4 cup
Whole Milk – 4 qts – heated
All purpose Flour – 8 TBS
Butter – 8 TBS
Fresh nutmeg
Pancetta – 1/4 inch thick slice – 1 or 2 depending on taste
Good quality Italian/french bread (use food processor to crumb) – approximately 1/2 cup
Salt/pepper – to taste (if you want a cleaner sauce use white pepper)
Olive Oil
Tubular or shaped pasta such as penne rigate, radiatore, farfalle, cavatappi or conchiglie – 1 pound

Prepare pasta by bringing large pot of salted water to a rapid boil, add pasta and cook until just below al dente. In a dutch oven or pot large enough to hold cooked pasta plus one quart liquid heat one tablespoon olive oil. Cut pancetta into 1/4 inch dice, when oil is heated add pancetta. Cook pancetta until crisp, remove from pot with slotted spoon and reserve. Pour off any fat left from pancetta add butter and flour and cook until combined scraping up brown bits from pan. Slowly pour heated milk into pot stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Bring milk to a fast simmer then add Parmesan, Asiago and Fontina cheeses stirring well to allow cheeses to melt. Add salt and pepper to taste and 4 or 5 scrapes of the nutmeg, stir well. Remove from heat, fold in cooked pasta until well coated, crumble gorgonzola cheese into mixture, combine well, cut mozzerella cheese into 1/2 inch chunks then fold into mixture

Butter a 9 x 13 oven proof dish, pour cheese and pasta mixture into pan and level top, combine bread crumbs with parmesan cheese and cover top. Bake in a 350° F oven until top is golden brown. This works well as a side dish or main course.

Scallop Appetizer

Pan seared diver scallop with pancetta crisp and sweet corn coulis.

You will need:
Fresh sweet corn or if not available frozen sweet corn.
Heavy cream.
Walla Walla or other sweet onion finely diced.
Oil oil.
Unsalted butter.
Kosher salt/fresh ground pepper.
One diver scallop per person.
Thinly sliced pancetta (one per scallop) NB: Pancetta is sold in roll form do not unroll simply have your purveyor slice thinly.

Put a little olive oil and butter in a sauté pan, heat until butter melts. Sauté onion until translucent add sweet corn and cook until corn just starts to caramelize. Add small amounts of heavy cream until corn starts to thicken. Process mixture in a food processor until smooth and creamy, set aside and keep warm.
Cook pancetta slices until crisp. Be careful it tends to burn easily. Set aside.
Put a little olive oil and butter in a sauté pan large enough to hold all the scallops. Heat until butter melts. Dry off the scallops, season with salt and pepper, put scallops in hot pan. Sauté scallops until done. This step depends on the size of your scallops. You should get a good sear on one side (make sure you get some color here) flip scallop to finish. Press down in the center of the scallop when you get a little resistance the scallop is done.
To plate pour some of the sweet corn coulis on an appetizer plate, if you have scallop shells use those. Place one scallop in the middle of the coulis and top with a pancetta disk. Garnish with a sprig of parsley.