Pasta with Pistachios

We recently had dinner at Hoffstot's Café Monaco here in Oakmont. Lisa ordered their Pasta Pistachio. It was so good that we decided to try to recreate it at home. Their menu describes the dish like this - 

"This simple dish is a chef’s favorite. Imported fusilli pasta tossed in butter with garlic, basil, oregano, fresh tomatoes and spinach then topped with toasted pistachios and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese".

These are the original key flavor ingredients- Pistachios, Garlic, Tomatoes, Basil, Oregano, Spinach, Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese

The dish was delicious as is but we wanted to make two changes right off the top: 

1) They used whole pistachios but we thought it would be better if it were a mix of whole pistachios and roughly chopped pistachios. 

2) They used fusilli but we felt a different type of pasta such as mezzi rigatoni would hold the nuts and other ingredients better and help prevent the bigger pieces from all ending up on the bottom of the pasta bowl.

But the more we thought about it, we came up with other ways to do a pistachio and pasta dish without getting too carried away. Like mixing all the original ingredients into ricotta and stuffing that into large shells or into pacheri (a short wide tubular pasta). Maybe do the original 7 ingredients but in a cream sauce or add crisped up pancetta as an additional ingredient

We finally settled on these ingredients - 

1 box Mezzi Rigatoni

1 cup Shelled Pistachios - chop half of them and leave half whole

1 pint multi colored Grape Tomatoes

1 Red or Orange sweet bell pepper - cut in thin ribbons

Half and Half - 1 1/2 cups

1/2 cup grated Pecorino cheese plus more for 

5 cloves Garlic - minced

Arugula - hand full

Good big handful fresh Basil

Oregano - 1 tablespoon fresh or 1 teaspoon dry

Fresh Hot Chili Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon minced or more to taste (optional)

Salt and Pepper to taste

How to - 

Bring a big pot of water to boil for the pasta. Add a tablespoon of salt and stir. 

In a medium sized frying pan on medium heat saute the garlic in olive oil for a 3-4minutes.

Add the pistachios and stir together.

Add the oregano, chili pepper and sweet peppers. Saute for another 3-4 minutes

Meanwhile drop the Rigatoni in the pasta pot.

Add the tomatoes to the pan with the pistachios and peppers. Add the Half and Half and Pecorino cheese. Stir everything together, salt and pepper to taste and cook to thicken.

When the rigatoni is done, drain and put in a large serving bowl, then add the ingredients in the pan along with the basil and arugula and stir everything together. It's important to add the basil at the end to keep it's flavor strong.

Put this delicious stuff in pasta bowls and top with grated pecorino cheese. 

Dig in and enjoy!!!