Leeks, Lemons, Linguine

Much like peanut butter and jelly, champagne and orange juice, Ice-T and Coco -- leeks and lemons are simply a God-given pairing.  They just work. The other day I wanted to make a caramelized leek and lemony ricotta flatbread, and I had all the ingredients except for ricotta and pizza dough (so I guess thats more like half the ingredients).  But I was hungry and I did have mascarpone and linguine, so I adapted the concept for a pasta dish.  The end result, as you might expect, was delicious.

Lemony Leek Linguine 

2 leeks

2 juicy lemons

1 container mascarpone cheese

extra virgin olive oil

linguine for 2 people

bread crumbs

Thinly slice the white and light green parts of the leeks, and put the rounds in a bowl of water. Push out all the little rings - the dirt will settle at the bottom.

Drain the leeks. Heat the olive oil in a saute pan, and add the leeks. Saute until browned.

While leeks are browning, cook linguine according to directions on package, but reserve some of the salted cooking water. Since none of that is too hands-on, you can also zest and juice the lemons. Multi-tasking!

Put some of the zest aside to sprinkle on top of the pasta. Combine the remaining zest, lemon juice, salted cooking water (which should be hot), and mascarpone (yeah, all of it. don't think, just do it) - whisk together into a sauce. Once combined, pour the sauce into the pan with the browned leeks - scrape up all the browned bits into the sauce, stirring. Add salt/pepper to taste.

Pour the lemon-leek sauce over the linguine, toss to combine. Separate the linguine into servings, sprinkle with bread crumbs and a little lemon zest. Enjoy.