I’m a sucker for crops with a short season—asparagus, fava beans, strawberries, and the like—and, for the few weeks they’re around, they wind up in everything I make. Once in a while something goes wrong, like the pickled rhubarb that was so overwhelmingly sour I had to compost it, but then once in a while I stumble on a real winner. So, before the weather turns consistently warm, I urge you: Go out, buy some ramps, and make pasta ramp-onara.
This dish was essentially an accident. About this time last year I was making a pasta carbonara using the essential recipe from Marcella Hazan. Guanciale was rendering in a cast iron skillet (for the Roman version of the sauce), two raw eggs were in the bottom of the biggest bowl I own, and finely chopped parsley and grated cheese waited patiently in little containers while the pasta water came to a boil. Then, while rooting around in the fridge for salad greens, I spied two bunches of ramps, and thought about how well bacon and ramps go together, and put away the cookbook so Marcella wouldn’t have to watch me bastardize her recipe. I pulled the crisp slices of meat from the skillet and added the cleaned ramp bulbs, pan-roasting them slowly until they were brown and soft. Then I added the shredded ramp leaves and let them wilt before adding a splash of white wine and letting that simmer away. The result was carbonara turned up to 11. The ramps were soft like the eggs, sweet like the pork, but with an undertone of sharpness like the wine.
Now that dish is in heavy rotation for the few weeks ramps are in season each year, and in another month it’ll work with green garlic or other hearty spring onions. You know, with whatever is about to disappear.
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