Sorrel is a green I haven’t ever used before. Its sour lemon tang seems like it may be overcome anything paired with it. But in this pesto, paired with lots of chives and green garlic, it adds a nice touch without being overbearingly sour. It went very well with the morels. I’m not sure why I threw the asparagus tips in, since I really wanted the morels to be the main focus. All of the veggies in this dish were bought at the Evanston farmer’s market and everything is organic, so it’s not a particularly cheap dish maybe especially since it contains $5 worth of morels.
1/6 lb morels
about a cup of chopped sorrel, ribs removed
3 stalks green garlic
1/2 cup chopped asian flat leaf chives
2 T pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup olive oil
butter
black and white peppercorns
sea salt
farfalle (bowtie) pasta
I pureed the pine nuts, peppercorns, salt, sorrel, chives and 2 of the stalks (chopped) garlic with the oil until it was smooth, then I added some more chopped chives and garlic, into the mix and just slightly chopped the mix in the porocessor, to leave little green bits. I figure this adds some visual dimension to the pesto, so it doesn’t look like green slime.
I quartered the morels and sauteed them in butter, salt and olive oil until they were just slightly browned. The morles came out, and another stalk of chopped up green garlic went in to saute, then the pesto went in. I was fairly gentle about cooking the pesto, since I wanted to get some of the flavor to come out of the garlic, but I had read that the sorrel would lose its unique tang with to much heat. 2-3 minutes on low, and it turned out fine.
The farfalle was cooked, and mixed up with the pesto and the morels went on top.