Guglielmo’s Vegetable Sauce - for Pasta
This recipe was invented by Guglielmo on a summer afternoon while we stayed at our summer house in the hills of Lucca. Once you reach the little village you better not have left anything home, there is no supermarket for a last minute run. So he looked into the garden and found all the ingredients for this pasta.
Once he had cooked all the vegetables he saw that we still had some home made pancetta on the cutting board and at the end added it to the vegetables. In the meantime I was making the fresh pasta with the eggs from our chickens and white flour we always keep in the pantry. The porcini mushrooms became a variation on an Autumn day when Guglielmo found some fresh porcini in the forest near our house..
- One large eggplant
- Two zucchini (green squash)
- One medium white onion
- Two large garlic cloves
- Three artichokes
- Five or six leaves of basil and sage
- Handful of parsley leaves
- Two Tsp of rosemary
- Three or four leaves of mint
- ¾ cup of pancetta (diced)
- Four medium size ripe tomatoes
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup white wine
- Salt and pepper as needed
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- For six persons-fresh egg noodles or fettuccine,1 lbs
Slice the eggplant, onions, artichokes, tomato and zucchini in small thin slices. The garlic, basil sage, parsley, rosemary and mint can be finely chopped. Place in large skillet with the olive oil, salt and pepper ( the skillet should be big enough to contain the cooked pasta “al-dente”) sauté and add the wine.
When the wine is evaporated keep stirring occasionally until all the vegetables are cooked to your liking (you may add a little water if needed).
The Pancetta is made into small ¼ inch cubes (Italian pancetta is not smoked), place it in a small pan with a little olive oil and brown gently, add this to the vegetables.
When the pasta is cooked “al-dente” put it in the skillet and place it over a live fire for a few minutes stirring and adding the parmesan cheese.
For a different taste to this recipe you can substitute the pancetta with dried Porcini mushrooms. In this case the mushrooms should soak in warm water for at least two hrs, and then added to the rest of the vegetables. Do not throw the water away, you can filter it and add it to the recipe for more taste.
