Sunchoke tagliatelle with sage scented parsley-cashew nut pesto

Somehow this season sunchoke or jerusalem artichoke was a rare guest in my kitchen. Main reason for that was that it was almost impossible to find them real fresh and juicy. Though the season is almost over, I just discovered a farmer's shop that had perfect sunchokes. I trust they were picked the morning or maybe a day ago. Fresh and firm. I thought it would be nice to celebrate that great bulb with something special. Sunchoke and hazelnut are going amazingly well together, it is almos like magic. So the actual plan was to make the pesto with roasted hazelnut, but I had no in my pantry. I thought to give it a go with cashew nuts and I must say it worked really well!

Ingredients:
for the sunchoke tagliatelle:
260-300 g sunchoke
200 g durum wheat
salt

for the sage scented parsley-cashew nut pesto:
150 g parsley leaves
100 g cashew nut
50 g parmesan
5-7 sage leaves
10-12 tablespoons olive oil
salt
freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Pack sunchokes on aluminium foil and bake for 15-20 minutes or until soft. As soon as it has cooled down to lukewarm, cut in half and scrap out the baked sunchoke from the peel. In my case I ended up with 140 g of puree. I added 200 g of durum wheat to the puree some salt and kneaded a dough. Then I rolled it out with the help of a pasta machine and sliced into tagliatelle.

For the pesto roast cashew nuts for 1 and a half to 2 minutes in the 200°C hot oven. Keep during the whole roasting time an eye on the nuts, because they can burn fast! Wash parsley and dry. Grate parmesan and puree all the ingredients together. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook pasta in simmering water and mix it the pesto. Serve with parmesan shavings and roasted cashew nuts.