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Con prosciutto e piselli

A pink-and-green spring sauce of cubed prosciutto and tender peas, finished with butter and cream or pasta water and Parmigiano. The dish runs in two registers: a delicate version with prosciutto cotto and a more assertive one with crudo. Both are seasonal and both are easy.

The two prosciutti

The dish takes either of the two Italian prosciutti, with markedly different results.

• Prosciutto cotto — cooked ham. A wet-cured, fully cooked pork leg; pink, sweet, mild. The more common choice for this dish, particularly when feeding children or pairing with delicate fresh peas. The traditional Italian cotto is unsmoked, lightly spiced (often with bay, juniper, and a faint sweetness from honey or sugar in the cure), and sliced thick or cubed.
• Prosciutto crudo — raw (cured) ham. A dry-cured, uncooked pork leg, aged 12 to 36 months depending on the producer. The two great names are Prosciutto di Parma DOP and Prosciutto di San Daniele DOP. Sharper, saltier, more intense than cotto. Used sparingly in this dish — a few small cubes per serving — so the salt is not overwhelming.

Most home cooks in Emilia choose cotto for everyday family dinners and crudo for a slightly more refined occasion. A restaurant version is often labelled tagliatelle con prosciutto cotto e piselli or tagliatelle al prosciutto di Parma e piselli to flag the choice.

The peas

Peas are the seasonal element. Italian fresh peas (piselli freschi) peak from April through June; podded, they are sweet, tender, and barely need cooking. Frozen peas are an excellent and entirely acceptable substitute year-round; the freezing process happens immediately after picking and preserves the sweetness well. Tinned peas are unsuitable — they are mushy, grey, and over-seasoned. Do not use them in this dish.

For four servings, 200 g of shelled fresh peas (or 200 g of frozen peas, no thawing required) is the standard. The peas are added to the pan with the prosciutto and need only a few minutes to warm through.

The method

For four servings of fresh tagliatelle (400 g), with cotto:

1. Prepare the elements. 150 g of prosciutto cotto, cubed into 5 mm dice. 200 g shelled fresh peas (or frozen). 1 small shallot, finely chopped. 50 g butter. 60 g freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Salt and pepper.
2. Sweat the shallot. In a wide pan, melt half the butter over moderate heat. Add the shallot. Soften 2 to 3 minutes without colouring.
3. Add the peas. Add the peas. Stir-cook 3 minutes; if fresh, until just tender; if frozen, until heated through.
4. Add the prosciutto. Stir in the cubed cotto. Cook 90 seconds — you want the prosciutto warmed and faintly fragrant, not dried out. If using crudo, add it later (off the heat) so it does not turn leathery.
5. Boil the pasta. Salted water; 2 to 3 minutes for fresh tagliatelle. Reserve a ladle of pasta water.
6. Combine. Drain the pasta. Add to the prosciutto pan over moderate heat. Add the remaining butter, a splash of pasta water, and toss vigorously to emulsify, 30 seconds. Off the heat, stir in the Parmigiano in two additions.
7. Season and serve. Cracked black pepper at the table. Salt only if the prosciutto has not provided enough; usually no further salt is needed.

Variants

• With cream. As above. Restaurant-style.
• With saffron. A pinch of saffron threads steeped in a tablespoon of hot pasta water and stirred in at the end. Turns the sauce gold; a Milanese flourish.
• With mint. A few torn leaves of fresh mint at the end. Particularly good with very young spring peas.
• Without prosciutto. The plain tagliatelle al burro e piselli — butter, peas, Parmigiano — is a vegetarian first course and a children's classic.

The dish in context

Prosciutto e piselli appears across Italy but is most strongly identified with the central-northern band: Emilia-Romagna (where the prosciutti come from), Lombardy, the Veneto, and Lazio. In Rome, the same combination underlies the dish called papalina, with eggs added to convert it into a refined cousin of carbonara. In Bologna, it is more often the simpler sauce described here, served on tagliatelle or sometimes on egg tagliolini.

The season is spring, narrowly. The wine pairing is a light, dry, slightly off-dry white — Pignoletto Colli Bolognesi, Pinot Grigio dell'Alto Adige, or a young Verdicchio. A light red works in the cream version; a chilled rosato from the Veneto is a particularly happy match.