Sous Chef Series: Josh Laurano’s Fazzoletti with Pesto

“I was kind of like the Alex P. Keaton of the family,” says Tarry Market’s executive chef, Josh Laurano. “My parents were total hippies–my dad even owned a vegetarian restaurant when I was a kid–but all I wanted was white bread and junk food.”

In his twenties, Laurano ditched a career in the fine-art business to attend culinary school. His first job was at Lupa, the Roman restaurant in New York City owned by Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, and he has continued to work for the duo since, at Del Posto, then Babbo, and now as executive chef at Tarry Market in Port Chester, New York.

“I think it’s safe to say that after all these years, I’ve absorbed the Italian ideology,” he says. That ethos is captured in his recipe for fresh pasta hankerchiefs, known as fazzoletti, topped with a simple pesto containing broccoli rabe, roasted garlic and Parmesan cheese. If you don’t want to make your own pasta, the pesto can also be used on dry pasta, or simply slathered on toasted bread.

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