Roger Rabbitt

Meet my friend Roger Griffith.

Roger Griffith

It was while dating Ann Vinson during my freshman year at James Madison University that first I met Roger Griffith, or Rog or Rogie as I sometimes call him. Roger was Ann's lab partner.

Since that time, Roger and I have been the best of friends. Roger is currently a Sculpture Conservator at MOMA and an expert gardener. And those are just some of his many talents.

Roger in the Garden, Phoenicia NY 2010

He travels all over the world and loves to eat great food. It seems some of the things he likes best are simple foods. As for me, some of the best meals I ever ate were served at Roger's dinner table.

Roger's Table Phoenicia NY

Today's post is a dish Rog taught me to make while I visited him in his apartment in Manhattan's lower east side.

Rogers NYC Apt

Roger is a man of boundless energy. For this reason, my partner Jim sometimes refers to him as Roger Rabbit. Today's dish is Roger’s Carrot Pasta so perhaps the Roger Rabbit moniker fits for this post, hmm?

Roger Rabbit

This is a great dish that can be served warm or cold. It is always a crowd pleaser.

Roger’s Carrot Pasta

Start by warming over medium heat, 3 tablespoons of Olive Oil in a sauté pan. Into this, place one peeled and smashed clove of garlic. Heat the oil and garlic until fragrant. Do not let the garlic burn or it will be become bitter. If this happens, start over and be more careful next time for goodness sake. Once the oil is infused with the garlic, remove it from the heat and discard the garlic clove.

Next make your pasta. I use one package, which is normally one pound (16 oz) of pasta. I like to use different shapes. My favorites are Farfalle (or Bowtie), Campanelle (which are ruffle shaped and to me look like flowers)or even Cavatappi (which are curly).

Any shape pasta will do.

While the pasta is cooking, grate one or two Carrots very finely. This should yield about a cup of carrots, depending on the size of the carrots. I use a hand grater to grate the carrots rather than the food processor.

I use the same grater to grate my block of Parmesan cheese. You are going to want about ½ cup of cheese or more depending on your taste.

Next finely chop a small bunch of fresh Parsley, enough to yield two or three tablespoons of chopped parsley. Again, depending on your preference.

A few minutes before the pasta is finished cooking, reheat the Olive Oil (remember at this point the garlic has been removed and thrown away). Once the Olive Oil is warm, sauté the shredded Carrots. The oil will become orange and the Carrots will be tender. The purpose is to infuse the oil with the Carrot flavor as well as to soften the Carrots.

Once the pasta is finished cooking, remove it from the stove, and drain it. I never rinse pasta that will be used with a sauce because the starch helps to bind the sauce to the pasta.

Place a third of the Carrot and Olive Oil mixture in the serving bowl and mix in a third of the pasta. Mix well.

Mix in another third of the Carrot mixture and another third of the pasta.

Finish up with the rest of the Carrot mixture and the rest of the pasta.

Once this is all incorporated, mix in the chopped parsley, and add some salt and ground black pepper to taste. I start with a pinch of Kosher salt and a couple of grindings of pepper, but you really just need to season to taste.

Once everything is combined, mix in the shredded Parmesan cheese. This can either be mixed into the pasta or sprinkled on top of each portion when served.

As an option, I like to add toasted nuts to this recipe. When I can, I use Pine nuts. I warm them in a dry pan over medium heat. Stirring constantly just until they brown slightly. Be careful they do not burn them.

I have also used Walnuts instead of the Pine nuts, warmed the same way, to good effect. A 1/3 to ½ cup is more than enough. These are just added to provide an additional flavor and texture to the pasta.

When I serve this warm for dinner, I slice Navel Oranges into rounds and serve the pasta over it. It looks great and the citrus really works well with the dish. When I serve this cold as a pasta salad, I garnish the edge of the bowl with orange half circles for added “curb appeal”.

They say we eat with our eyes first. If that is true, what better dish to eat than a Carrot pasta? Carrots after all are good for our eyes, right??

Do you know where that eye/carrot connection comes from? It seems that back in WWII, the British Air Ministry started a propaganda campaign that said that the English Army’s diet of carrots was helping them detect and shoot down Nazi Bombers at night. In fact, this was just a cover for the Royal Airforce’s Airborne Inception Radar, or Al as it was also known.

Carrots really are good for your eyes though.While I don't think we will ever get to the point that we won’t need radar for spotting planes, you will need to be able to read your computer screen so that you can keep up with this blog.

Tune in tomorrow.