Garganelli con Prosciutto e Piselli

Garganelli is the pasta that separates those who cook from those who merely heat things up. Each piece is cut, rolled around a thin dowel, pressed against a ridged board to create grooves, then slipped off and set to dry. It is tedious. It is time-consuming. It is worth every minute.

The ridges exist for a reason. They catch sauce. They hold the peas in their little valleys. They grip the cream so it clings rather than slides off. A smooth tube would let the sauce pool at the bottom of the bowl. The ridges prevent this. Form follows function, as it does in all honest cooking.

This is a spring dish, made when peas are sweet and tender. Frozen peas work adequately in winter. Fresh peas at their peak make this dish transcendent. The prosciutto here is cotto, the cooked ham, not the cured crudo. Cotto has a gentler flavor that lets the peas sing. The cream is a whisper, not a flood. What you keep out is as significant as what you put in.