Pasta con salsiccia e pesto di pistacchi

This is one of my favorites: Pasta con salsiccia e pesto di pistacchi
I had it for the first time in Palermo, and I have never found it anywhere in a restaurant outside Sicily.

The good news is; that it’s not difficult to prepare.

Like most Italian dishes, it’s not the amount but the quality of the ingredients that count.

Let’s see, what do we need?

The first ingredient I prep is…opening a bottle of wine!

I suggest a light red; I went for a fruity Pinot Noir. Another good choice could be a Valpolicella or, of course, Nero d’Avola.

I found nice pasta:

And here we go – 48 months old Parmesan and fresh Salsiccia.

I understand that such Parmesan could be out of budget in the US; instead, get a regular one between 20-24 months old. Good Parmesan is so expensive over there.

It might be challenging to find fresh Salsiccia. If you can’t find it, but a supermarket nearby has some prepacked ones, go for it.
More important: If possible, choose the fennel version, as it will give a nice contrast to the dish.

I always have two different olive oils at home.
One standard extra vergine for frying or regular dishes, and a high-end one for special occasions or to eat with plain bread.

Because this is a special dish, I used the better oil. A few drops are enough as the sausage has a lot of fat.

Above you see the pistachio pesto. It’s probably the most challenging ingredient to get, but proper Italian specialty shops should have it.

As this is usually top-shelf stuff, it’s made without preservatives. Instead, you’ll find olive oil at the top. That’s a sign of quality, even for standard pesto.

Of course, before we use it, we need to stir it in:

I start with cutting the sausages into pieces.
The fresh ones are perfectly fine with the skin. If you cook with prepacked sausages, I would peel them from the skin, which could take a while. Hence this would be an excellent first step.

Get water boiling and check how long your pasta takes. Mine is 20 minutes, quite a lot!
So, my next step is to throw in the pasta:

Get a few pistachios. I prefer roasted and salted, but use whatever you can find.

Crush them!

I would now use 1/4 onion and dice it, then put it into the pan to glass them. Look at me; I was sure I had onions left at home. I was wrong. So, no onions this time. It’s fine. Here’s the sausage:

My next step was to cut the parmesan. But something went wrong. Look at the background.

Okay, cat tax.
Fortunately, Cirkin was not ravenous and left with the tiny piece I put aside for him.
Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let him lick the sausage I want to use, but I’m okay with this scene. He’s my boy!

The pasta is coming to the top; I need to speed things up a bit!

I add the pesto to the sausage and stir.
By the way, I use a pan with a thick base that doesn’t get too hot to prevent the delicate sausage from burning.

The mixture would be too dry, so I’m stealing some pasta water:

And, ah, redistribute it:

Give it another quick stir.
The pasta should be ready now, so I add it to the pan:

Mix it:

And that’s it; top it with the pistachio and parmesan. Here we go:

Now, when I cook something that I prepped in the past already, I usually don’t pay too much attention to “xx grams of this, yy ml of that,” but let me try to remember the measurements:

Two fresh salsiccia with fennel

One glass of pesto di pistachio; I used 3/4 of it

Half of the box of pasta, around 250 gr

A handful pistachios

Some Parmesan, the older, the better

Olive oil, salt

Oh, and an onion would have been nice.

That’s for two people if there’s something else available, like bread on the side or even a second course.

But not today; I just wanted to enjoy this fantastic dish without anything else!