A delicious spring pasta: Bronte's pistaches pesto & speck

Do you know what the pesto of pistaches is? It is a sauce made of mashed pistaches from Bronte, a town near Catania, and it is mixed with some salt, pepper and oil of olive. It is a product that people normally buy in supermarkets but I don't think you find it anywhere else out of Sicily.

The recipe that I am going to put is something my mum and I created on a sunday morning, while we were thinking about an original nice way to dress our pasta. We like to try combining different ingredients so we decided to use not only a Sicilian pistaches pesto but also some speck, which is a smoked Parma ham typical of the region of Trentino Alto Adige, up in the north, added some creamy cheese as well and it was just fabulous! We couldn't have a better result! 

So with a little more imagination we can say that Italy is united in this dish also in our three colors of the flag :) 

Ingredients & preparation for four people:

380 gr. penne rigate (or any other type of pasta you like)
4-5 tablespoons of pesto

80 gr. speck thinly sliced and chopped in pieces

2-3 tablespoons of creamy cheese (like Philadelphia or similar)

3-4 leaves fresh mint

some grated lemon zest
black pepper

Cook the penne as usual, adding salt when the water boils. While they are cooking, in another sauce pan or frying pan, put the chopped speck on a medium heat, after a couple of minutes add the pesto of pistaches and some hot water taken from the pasta, add the creamy cheese as well, a bit of black pepper, the leaves of mint and some grated lemon if you like them all and... voilà the sauce is ready!
As soon as the penne are cooked, drain and sautè them in the sauce pan with the dressing, mixing well all together. Sprinkle with Parmisan cheese on top and the whole of Italy is served right on your table! Delicious!!!

Afternoon snack with homemade bread and pistaches cream

Everyone knows what is the famous Piedmont nuts cream called Nutella, but do you know what the pistaches cream is? The word Nutella is a brand but it is such a part of Italians' everyday life that we started to use this name to call other similar things. 



In Sicily for example there is a cream made with the pistaches from Bronte, near Catania, so in colloquial ways we referr to it as the pistaches Nutella. 


The pistaches cream is green and delicious, you can eat it on some fresh bread or if you prefer make a pie and fill it with this cream.


The pistache from Bronte also called the "Green gold" is a variety named from the Latin Pistacia vera and is a Denomination of Protected Origin (P.D.O.) They are used for salty dishes as well as for desserts, ice cream included.


If you ever come to Sicily I suggest you buy some of this lovely green gold in the typical shops that sell Sicilian specialties. You will definetely enjoy it!