For 4 people: 100 g arugula, 3 sprigs basil, 1 clove garlic, 150 g mushrooms, 350 g ribbon noodles, 50 g pine nuts, 50 g freshly grated parmesan, 100 ml olive oil, ground pepper.; 4 tbsp olive oil for frying, lemon juice, salt.
Wash arugula and basil, dry and, without the stems, roughly chop. Peel and dice garlic. Clean mushrooms and, if possible, wipe only with a cloth, cut into thin slices.
Cook pasta in salted water until al dente. Meanwhile, puree the arugula, basil, garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan with the olive oil in a blender until creamy, season with salt and pepper. Fry the mushrooms briefly on both sides in the 4 tablespoons of oil, season with salt, pepper and zirone juice. Mix the well drained pasta with the pesto and distribute on 4 preheated plates. Drain the mushroom slices on kitchen paper and arrange on top of the pasta.
There's a herb for "sleepy nature: Rocket
Waverley Root ("The Book of the Mouth", Eichborn Verlag) considers rocket an old-fashioned salad herb that would seem highly fashionable to modern people if they ordered it under its Italian name, rucola. Although the southern French salad mix called mesclun has always contained rocket, at the moment everything that comes into the shops or onto the table in Italian garb is more or less automatically in fashion. In the case of the rocket, sometimes it is called oil or mustard lime; Roquette is called the green stuff in France, however, this is to be welcomed.
For we knew it once in this country, too, only it disappeared from our gardens, similar to the chard. In Magister Elsholtz ("Diaeteticon", published in 1683) there is already mention of rucette. He tended to see it more as a herb than as a salad plant, because it was difficult to enjoy it on its own. It is better to mix rocket with endives and other "cool herbs"because alone it is "much too hot". On the other hand, it is good for the phlegmatic, as it awakens their "drowsy nature", an effect that even poets appreciate. Rocket should be eaten throughout the summer, and after flowering the leaves taste bitter.
Rocket is supposed to be spicy, even bitter? Our arugula has little of these qualities left. In times of mass cultivation, it will fare much as lamb's lettuce once did. I remember very well how its pungency brought tears to my eyes. There can be no question of that today, it has become mild, as has rocket. Nevertheless, it has character, is the only welcome salad innovation of recent years, and I would not want to miss it.
At the stand of family Reitz 2 varieties of arugula are available: Garden Arugula (eruca sativa) and Wild Arugula (eruca selvatica). The former has soft, large leaves and tastes quite mild; the wild one is smaller, has quite firm stems, cracks when you bite on it and lives up to its name with a stronger flavour. The Reitz` get their arugula from two nurseries near Darmstadt, it costs 1 euro each in the 400 g bundle.
You do not put the salad at home in water, then the leaves turn yellow, but remove the rubber holding the bundle together, wash the leaves lukewarm and then leave them for a quarter of an hour. After that, arugula keeps quite well in the foil bag that Mrs. Reitz always gives people in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator. At one time she had to feed German customers with arugula leaf by leaf, which Italian or French customers had known for a long time. She also gives tips for preparation: walnuts and parmesan are good with salad, but not dill. Moreover, it is harmful to rocket if it is heated: it no longer tastes of anything. As a pesto, on the other hand, as a paste with pine nuts, oil and spices, arugula is an excellent accompaniment to pasta. To chop it and sprinkle it on buttered bread was already recommended by Magister Elsholtz.
Fruits and vegetables
Ilse, Wolfgang and Marko Reitz
Kleinmarkthalle (Hasengasse 7), Stand 108-113
60311 Frankfurt am Main
Telephone: 069-292731
from Waldemar Thomas