Pasta Primavera | top

1/3 cp olive oil
½ onion, sliced
2-3 cps assorted vegetables
Salt & pepper
3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 oz white wine
10 oz cooked pasta
¼ cp parmesan cheese

1. Pour the olive oil into a pan big enough to hold the vegetables & pasta.
2. Layer the onions on the bottom and the additional vegetables on top.
3. Cook without stirring until onions pick up color, then stir as needed.
4. Add garlic and cook 1 minute.
5. Add wine and reduce.
6. Toss in pasta, stir to coat w/ sauce – then add cheese.

Granchio (Crab Capellini) | top

This is one of the all time favorites at the Ristorante. I put it on the menu 15 years ago as a special and now it’s always in demand.
A light but flavorful pasta dish, it’s a perfect way to use local Dungeness crab, ripe tomatoes and summer’s fragrant basil, and it’s easy to make for a mid-week meal.

2 Tbl olive oil
4 oz shallots (about 5 small ones)
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½ oz basil (about 16 leaves)
5 oz chopped tomato (2 roma tomatoes)
¾ cp white wine
6 oz crabmeat
10 oz cooked angel hair or capellini pasta (al dente)
1 oz (1/4 cp) Parmesan

1. Sauté shallots with salt and pepper in olive oil over high heat, constantly stirring, until shallots turn brown and crispy. Be careful not to burn.
2. Add basil, tomato and white wine. Reduce sauce rapidly over high heat by 2/3’s.
3. Sauce will be thin but intensely flavorful. Add crab just to heat, about 1-2 minutes.
4. Add pasta & Parmesan to pan and toss. If too dry add a bit of water. If sauce puddles too much, cook in pan until pasta absorbs extra sauce.
5. Divide on two plates, placing pasta on bottom and crab on top.

Bistecca alla Pizziolo | top

Translates as ‘in the style of the pizza maker’, and this fast sauce with piquant capers and salty olives would be just as tasty on pizza.

4 five-ounce rib-eye steaks, salted & peppered
4 Tbl olive oil
1/3 tsp oregano
Pinch hot pepper flakes
4 chopped garlic cloves
1 Tbl capers, drained
1/3 cp kalamata olives, torn in half
½ cp chopped tomato
½ cp white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste
1 cp marinara sauce
2-3 tsp chopped fresh parsley

1. Heat olive oil over high heat, when it starts to smoke, sear steaks on both sides. Remove meat to a plate.
2. Working quickly to prevent hot pepper flakes from burning, add the pinch of hot pepper, garlic, capers, olives, chopped tomato and white wine, in that order. Grind the black pepper over.
3. Add marinara and bring to a boil.
4. Cook down sauce until thickened. Add chopped parsley at the end.
5. Toss half of sauce with pasta, place steaks over sauced pasta and ribbon rest of sauce over steaks.