This recipe is an adaptation of a dish I made during one of the best trips I’ve ever taken, to a small town called Praiano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. We were staying in a tiny apartment rising several hundred steps above the rocky shoreline, and our front door was just under a lemon tree that kept dropping lemons right at our feet (and at one point, on my head). Each day we would collect a lemon or two for our water, cocktails, and dinner, having walked over to the tiny market just up the street to grab a few ingredients. Creamy pastas have always been one of my greatest joys and weaknesses, and this one has developed in the years since to include different seasonal produce in addition to the rich lemony foundation. I have also included chanterelle mushrooms (sautéeing them along with the garlic and asparagus), and a few black trumpet mushrooms (simmer along with the cream and lemon zest) when I’ve had either of those delicacies available during foraging season. While you can use any sort of pasta shape in this recipe, in the past handful of years I’ve become pretty dedicated to using bucatini or a spiraled shape like Vesuvio or trumpet pasta, finding the extra springiness of a hollow or spiraled noodle to be a great bit of bonus texture when cooking the pasta al dente.
Chop and sauté the garlic cloves in the olive oil and butter over medium-high until fragrant, which will take a few minutes.
Add the chopped asparagus spears and continue to sauté until the pieces are bright green, tender and starting to caramelize a bit in a few spots. Season with a bit of salt and pepper as you sauté. Set the garlic and asparagus mixture aside.
Bring salted pasta water to a boil. Once boiling, add the bucatini (or pasta of your choice) to the water and cook until al dente. Strain, while reserving ½ cup of starchy pasta water for use later.
In a saucepan, bring heavy cream, as well the half of a lemon’s worth of zest that you have peeled off in large ribbons, to a simmer. Cook until the cream begins to thicken and give off a lemony aroma.
Combine the cooked pasta and the cream mixture and bring back to low heat. Add the asparagus and butter mixture, stirring as you combine. Continue to stir the pasta as you add juice of 1½ lemons and cook, allowing the sauce to thicken a bit more as the pasta and sauce heat through. Slowly mix in the ½ cup of grated Parmesan cheese a bit at a time until fully incorporated.
Taste and reseason with salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. Add some of the reserved pasta water just before serving if the sauce has started to thicken too much.
Top each bowl with a bit more grated Parmesan cheese, a bit of lemon zest, and some fresh parsley from your garden if you have any around.
*Note: The accompanying recipe photos show cultivated asparagus since this recipe was cooked outside the wild harvest season, but wild and cultivated asparagus look (and are) identical to one another, and should be treated the same way when prepared in any recipe. The noodle shown is Vesuvio, a dynamic pasta shape named after Mt. Vesuvius.
