Testing another recipe.

Saturday night Marty and I tested another recipe for Cook's Illustrated.  It was Spaghetti al Vino Rosso with Arugula, Pancetta, and Pinenuts.  There are lots of pictures of the process.  This time it was all Marty cooking.  I made a salad and washed up behind him.

                                                     Toasting the pinenuts.

The pancetta ready to be browned.  Marty had trouble finding this in our grocery.  Which is weird, pancetta is a common meat item.  He found it in a upscale grocery.  So we paid more than usual for it.

 This is the arugula.  Another item that Safeway did not have.  Our upscale grocery luckily did have it.

                                               Pancetta starting to brown. 

Marty adding sugar to the pasta. We think more was needed.  The finished dish had a bitter taste.

                                                 Steaming the almost finished dish.

 The pasta has had red wine added to it to finish cooking.  The arugula and Parmesan have been added to the dish.

Marty is one fancy skillet flipper.  If I do this stuff lands everywhere.  He is mixing all the ingredients.  The pasta is continuing to cook in wine and pasta water.

                                                       Starting to plate.

                                              Marty is adding the toasted pine nuts.

                                        Now Marty is adding the browned pancetta.

                              Almost ready to eat.  One more ingredient to be added.

                  The Parmesan cheese is sprinkled on the dish.  We are ready to eat.

This was not very labor intensive.  But you had to be ready for every step.  It was a good dish, just not a great dish.  As I said before, there was a bitter taste to the dish.  I don't think it was the arugula.  We use that in salads and it doesn't taste bitter.  The pancetta was good, the wine soaked pasta was good, hot pepper flakes gave the dish a nice snap.  But it just did not stand out as a I'll fix this dish again.  It was not a disaster as our last recipe test was.  But not a keeper either.