I have some pretty awesome neighbors, which is lucky because it’s fun to live in a place where you can stroll into someone’s house without knocking, your kids play together, and people eat all your recipe development efforts and give honest feedback. I literally have a Facebook group of just friends who live in the neighborhood and when I develop a recipe, I put the food up for grabs on the group. It hasn’t been without controversy though, namely when I left some fresh enchiladas outside of neighbor X’s house, and neighbor Y, watching out the window the whole time, ran across the street after I had left and stole them..and ate them. I guess it’s flattering when people are fighting over your food!
Anyhow, when one of my neighbors told me that she loves the pasta with lemon sauce at Terroni, a restaurant in Toronto, I took it as a challenge for me to recreate the dish. I’d never eaten it before (I’m boycotting Terroni because they told my pregnant friend that she couldn’t have parmesan on her lobster pasta, which is unacceptable and totally pretentious to say to anyone, never mind a pregnant person), but I knew the recipe would be easy to figure out.
I made a few batches because it wasn’t quite as easy as I thought to get the ratios right in this recipe, but I finally did it and the sauce came out amazing. It’s light and tart and cheesy.
Don’t freak out at the amount of oil in the recipe. It’s an olive oil-based sauce, so it has a lot of oil. And the butter is necessary at the end to finish the sauce. Leave it out, and the final product won’t be right. Butter and oil, get over it and enjoy.
Serves 4-6
1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup +2T freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup grated Parmesan
1T lemon zest
1/2t brine from capers
2T capers
2T butter
More lemon zest for garnish
Approximately 1lb pasta
Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add the pasta.
Combine the oil, cheese, brine, lemon juice and lemon zest in a blender or food processor and blend well until emulsified and well blended – the sauce will look smooth and white when it’s finished.
Once the pasta is cooked, drain well and place back into the pot. Pour the lemon mixture onto the pasta, add the lemon zest, and toss very well.
Add the butter to the pasta and toss until melted, then place into bowls to serve.
Garnish with capers and more lemon zest.
Enjoy!!
