top of page

trofie con pesto di salvia

trofie with sage pesto and pork shoulder

I’ve really enjoyed watching Italian chefs and home cooks loosen up in recent years and move away from the ultra-conservative ‘this is how it’s done attitude’ of the past. Having said that, it’s still very unusual to see pesto on a restaurant menu used as a ‘base’ for other ingredients, and more unusual still to find pesto recipes with other herb, vegetable or nut ingredients, with the exception of Sicilian or ‘red’ pesto. So this is my Sage Pesto, which I use here as a base for small strips of pork shoulder.


Sage and pork are very good friends but the herb comes with a certain amount of baggage in the UK - it's as if many British people have developed a genetic aversion to strong sage flavours because of terribly cooked sage and onion stuffing.... I suffered from this myself for many years, and my solution was to start cooking really sparingly with sage once again, almost re-learning how to appreciate it as a subtle flavour. And that’s not easy, because many of the varieties of sage we grow in the UK are pretty pungent.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)

  • prepare the ingredients

  • make the sage pesto

  • cook the pork

  • boil the pasta

  • combine pesto and pasta

  • add pork, plate

trofie with sage pesto and pork shoulder

INGREDIENTS

FOR FOUR PEOPLE


PESTO

  • 600g (21 oz) pork shoulder steaks

  • approx 25g (1 oz) fresh sage leaves

  • approx 10g (0.5 oz) fresh parsley leaves

  • approx 20g (1 oz) fresh basil leaves

  • 50g (2 oz) pinoli

  • 2 small garlic cloves

  • approx 40g (1.5 oz) grated parmesan

  • approx 40g (1.5 oz) grated pecorino

  • approx 150ml (5 fl oz) EVO


PASTA

500g (18 oz) dry / fresh trofie


MANTECATURA (?)

none, simply combine using pasta water

PandM_logo_section_divider.png

METHOD

If you’re a ‘salviaphile’ you have nothing to worry about. If sage fills you with a ‘not sure about that’ reaction, just try making this pesto with small quantities of sage. That’s really easy to do, because just like with any other pesto in this chapter, blending / grinding small quantities of all the ingredients together is what we do. And it lets us fine-tune the balance of flavours in any pesto really easily.


So go ahead and make a sage pesto using the quantities here as a guide. Then cook the frozen peas and set aside. With the pesto at room temperature, dry-fry your pork shoulder on a high heat until nearly done. Remove it from the pan and cut into small pieces, then return it to the pan and fry it in its own fat until it colours. Set it aside.

Boil and cook the trofie the normal way and follow the tips for Cooking with Pesto I the Technique section. Add the peas and then pork shoulder as final ingredients. Serve immediately and with extra grated parmesan/pecorino and black pepper.

NUTRITION per serving

  • KCAL: we're working on it!

  • Fat (g): TBC

  • Sat Fat (g): TBC

  • Carb (g): TBC

  • Sug (g): TBC

  • Fibre(g): TBC

  • Prot (g): TBC

  • Salt (g): TBC

bottom of page