This weekend, I went to the local farmers mark in Berkeley. The poor California farmers have taken quite a beating. Many farmers brought their citrus fruits to market. Stand after stand of forlorn oranges, tangerines, and clementines were mottled with grey grime and lumpy with frostbitten flesh. Some farmers offered samples, others didn’t bother, choosing instead to sell whatever fruit they could in sealed bulk bags. Seeing the sad bins of damaged fruit, and the worried farmers, I felt compelled to buy as many citrus fruit as I imagined we could eat in a week. I managed to find some tasty Washington navel oranges as well as some decent paige mandarins.
The key to finding good citrus is, of course, tasting before you buy. And if no samples are available, ask the farmer if you can sample a piece of fruit. Segments with dry, fibrous bits of flesh have been damaged by frost. Once you’ve found some fruit you like, look for firm fruit without a lot of blemishes or great differences in firmness. Once you’ve selected your fruit, be prepared to pay more than usual to help the farmers make up for their losses.
All citrus woes aside, I was pleased to see green garlic and green onions at the farmers market. These goodies generally appear in the spring, so I was pleasantly surprised to find them at the market in January. The delicate flavor of green garlic is a boon to any dish, particularly when cooked in butter. The piquant freshness of green onion adds a little kick in the pants to most dishes. When I spied the meyer lemon fettuccine at Phoenix Pastificio, my mental image of dinner was vibrant enough to be smell-o-vision: meyer lemon pasta with green garlic and onions, the artichokes and fennel I had at home, the curd I picked up at the Spring Hill Cheese stand, all fragrant and moist with meyer lemon juice and butter.
You could make this dish with regular pasta, but fresh meyer lemon pasta adds another dimension of citrus that complements the other ingredients well. If you don’t have lemon pasta, and don’t feel like making any (who can blame you?), ordinary fresh or dry pasta would work, and spinach pasta might be good as well. If you’re using regular pasta, you might want to zest a lemon and use the zest in the sauce. To make this a more citrusy dish, you could try adding fillets of blood orange, clementine, or half a pomelo. I haven’t tried this variation, but fennel and citrus always make a happy couple.
meyer lemon pasta with fennel artichoke sauce
340 gr fresh meyer lemon pasta, or regular pasta, fresh or dry
butter and olive oil
2 cooked artichoke hearts with stems, cleaned and trimmed
1 fennel, cored
1 stalk of green garlic
1 stalk of green onion
1 small lemon (a meyer lemon if available)
1-2 handfuls of curd, haloumi, or mozzarella
salt and pepper
- Boil water for the pasta in a large covered pot. If using dry pasta, cook it now. If using fresh pasta, boil the water now and cook the pasta while preparing the sauce.
- Chop the fennel and artichoke hearts and stems into thick matchsticks. You want to match the size of the vegetables with your pasta. For example, if you’re using fettuccine, make thicker matchsticks. If you’re using angel hair pasta, julienne the vegetables.
- If you’re using regular pasta, zest the lemon.
- Slice the lemon in half and squeeze the juice over the artichoke pieces to prevent discoloration.
- Chop the whites of the garlic and onion.
- Chop the green parts of the green onion stalks into matchsticks.
- Place a large pan on a medium flame and melt some butter in olive oil.
- Saute the garlic, then the fennel, then add the artichoke pieces along with the lemon juice.
- If using fresh pasta, cook the pasta as directed (typically about 3 minutes for fresh pasta).
- Toss in the onion greens and rip in some fennel fronds. If using regular pasta, add in the lemon zest.
- Throw in the cheese and turn off the flame.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper, and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.
- Toss and correct seasoning. Add a little of the pasta water to the vegetables and toss with the pasta.
Serves 2
