Leftover Mondays: Boiled Ham and Roast Chicken pasta with Puntarella

Leftover Monday, such a treat after the weekend!
 
Ingredients:

• 8oz of dried trompetti pasta
• 2oz of salted butter
• one large clove of smoked garlic, finely chopped
• one small onion, finely chopped
• one head of Puntarella, divided and chopped as described below
• one glass of white, dry wine, a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc
• 10oz of boiled ham, roughly chopped
• 6oz of roast chicken, roughly chopped
• 2 dessert spoons of chopped sorrel
• 2 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil

Puntarella, an Italian chicory, for those in the know has a bitter quality.  Although not unpleasant, the beautiful celery like stalks surround a heart of under-formed stems that look a bit like pyramidal arrows pointing to the sky.

The shape of the leaves look a little like rocket, although attached down the sides of the celery like stalks.  Overall the plant tastes like mild aniseed so the overall experience to the cooked vegetable is rather lovely I think.

I cooked this like I do rainbow chard, stripping the greenery off the stalks, roughly chopping them and placing them aside for later use.  The stalks I chop to inch lengths and with the heat I cut away the base and separate the buds.  In this case there were a little over twenty of these.

As I am doing this, I am bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and start cooking the pasta.

Separately, in another large saucepan, I melted the butter over a medium heat and whilst this is warming through I add the chopped garlic and onion.  As these soften, I add the chopped stalks and the baby stems, stirring the mixture until evenly coated with butter mixture.  As this is warming through, I lower the heat slightly and cover with a lid.

At this point I test the pasta to see if just under cooked.  Depending on how rapid your boil, this may almost be done.

As the Puntarella mixture has had a few minutes covered, I now add the meat and the wine.  Stirring well and waiting until the mixture is heated through.  Again cover and lower the heat a little more whilst you drain the pasta, sprinkling a with a little olive oil to help separate the pieces.

Check on the vegetable and meat mixture to ensure this hasn't begun to stick to the bottom of the pan.  Now add the pasta to this, mix through with the chopped leaves and half the sorrel.

If the leaves are fresh then at this stage, just take off the heat and leave covered to rest for a few minutes below serving.  If the leaves have wilted or are couple of days old, keep the heat on for two minutes more and then take off the heat.

Divide the pasta between three plates for generous portions and dress with remaining chopped sorrel.