(Extra) Well Fed: A Quick Pasta with Ramson, Peas & Miso-Whipped Ricotta

it's fast and will make you happy + bonus cured egg yolk recipe!

This is a precursor to my official ramson-fest next week. I love young, wild garlic…doesn’t every chef? True statements aside, I have decided on using ‘ramson’ for this post, and those next week…ramp is what we say stateside, ramsløg is the Danish word. Ramson is English and that feels fair to use, split down the middle somehow. One of my favorite regenerative farms outside Copenhagen, Klippingegård, also lists these tender leaves as ramsons on their weekly produce list and after ordering dozens of kilos last season, they are branded in my brain as ‘ramson.’

I made this pasta a few weeks ago, (ramson season starts in late March/early April in Denmark) when I had some leftovers from recipe testing a bunch of things with fresh peas (yum). A kitchen sink-sort of pasta, it combines ramson, spring fresh peas, ricotta whipped with a little yellow miso and an egg yolk, as well as some grated cured egg yolk over top for some parmesan-esque umami and lots* of cracked black pepper…which all together gives a hint of cacio e pepe vibes. It was mid-week I believe, and I can’t remember exactly what I did that day, but I recall being really drained. It was an ideal evening for the type of comfort and love that only pasta can provide sometimes. In the spirit of kitchen-sinkness, I only had some whole wheat spaghettini lying around (which I am typically suspect of—there’s a lot of not-so-great whole grain pasta out there sadly…but also some very good stuff, too). Anyway, with some luck, the ww spaghettini turned out to be a bit of a revelation for this particular pasta combo. It’s sturdy nuttiness brought everything else to life and I sat quietly savoring every forkful with a massive child-like grin on my face. Maybe it was my mood that day or the fact that sunset was growing increasingly later, but I remember thinking how rare it is to receive that kind of impact from any dish - at home or at a restaurant. Really its a true gift. Not to say that this is a ground-breaking recipe, but it’s a good reminder for us that tossing together a few stray ingredients from the fridge and pantry in under 10 minutes can lead to full-body delight just as easily as spending 4 or 5 hours on some very intricate or long recipe (which I am also known to do). But honestly, I think most of my favorite meals come from a sense of imperfection—there’s something wonderfully exciting and freeing about throwing stuff together and fingers crossed, tasting what the outcome is. That freedom also builds trust and confidence of working your way through your kitchen.

So for all you ramson lovers out there…here’s a 10 minute pasta that made me (and hopefully you) very happy.