It was Friday night and I was supposed to meet my friend Peggy for a drink around 7. I’m not sure how my brain works sometimes, but I thought “wouldn’t it just be easier if Peggy, and her husband Tod, came for dinner.” Like, you know, having an impromtu dinner party is a lot easier than meeting a girlfriend for drinks.
And, since I was having people over to dinner, why not include my friend Eugenia?
So, there I was, 6pm, people arriving in an hour and a half and not only did I not have anything in the house to cook, I hadn’t even decided what to make.
An extremely quick trip to the the fruttivendola and I came up with a menu that I knew I could pull together in about an hour.
Here’s the menu:
- Martinis and Roasted Almonds (because, you know, the original idea was cocktail-based)
- Spaghetti with Zucchini and Sheep’s Milk Cheese (because I did have a great pack of pasta)
- Roasted Radicchio with Balsamic (kind of like this)
- Roasted Broccolo Romano with Pomegranate and Hazlenuts (inspired by a recipe in Jerusalem)
- Peggy brought a totally over the top rich and creamy chocolate cake.
- Eugenia brought two loaves of fantastically dense, grainy bread.
While it wasn’t quite as easy as just meeting a girlfriend for a Friday night drink, it was definitely a lot more fun. And, do I have to say it? Much more delicious.
spaghetti {zucchini + pecorino}
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4
Ingredients
- 500 g/ 1 lb Spaghetti
- 700 grams / 1.5 lbs zucchini
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- salt
- 1 teaspoon medium strength ground hot pepper (I used this), or more to taste.
- 1 cup grated sharp sheep’s milk cheese
- 1 cup torn basil leaves
Instructions
- Slice the zucchini into 1/4 inch slices.
- Pour the olive oil into a large pan big enough to hold all of the zucchini in one layer, more or less, and then all of the pasta afterwards.
- Heat the oil to medium high, then add the zucchini. Give it a good stir, then season with salt and hot pepper. Let cook over medium high heat without stirring too much. It’s good to let the edges get brown, but make sure you stop cooking before the zucchini turns to mush. This should only take 10 minutes, tops.
- In the meantime, bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until about 1 minute away from being done.
- Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water.
- Add the drained pasta to the zucchini, and stir and mix over medium heat. Add 1/2 cup of the cooking water, and continue stirring. Turn off heat, and add both the cheese and the rest of the cooking water, alternating and stirring, to create a creamy consistency.
- Finally, mix in most of the basil.
- Serve into individual dishes and top with a bit more basil.
Notes
The success of these kinds of simple pastas relies on the quality of the ingredients. Top notch pasta is a given. Well made, imported, artisinal pasta from Italy really does make a huge difference. For this recipe I used a pack of Rustichella Primo Grano spaghettoni. Made with 100% Abruzzo grown heritage wheat. The pasta is made with bronze dies, which give it a rough texture, and dried over 50 hours at 35 degrees c. which preserves the original taste of the grain. While I often buy this when I can find it (oddly difficult in Italy) this pack was a gift from the folks at Manicaretti, who import it to the States. You can find a list of retail outlets here, including many that sell online. I was also able to find late season zucchini romanesche, which remain very firm when cooked. If you can’t find them, try to use baby zucchini, which won’t completely fall apart. I used some aged sheep’s milk cheese that Eugenia had brought me from Corsica. Hard enough to grate, but not as piquant or over bearing as pecorino Romano. Good substitutes would be and aged pecorino from the Siena area, or even one from Spain or France.
The dish was provided by Sberna, in Deruta and is the classic Gallo Verde pattern.
Thank you for the inspiration. Made your zucchini/spaghetti recipe with trofie tonight. Only seven ingredients. Knocked our socks off! Great suggestion to get a good bit of brown on the zucchini.
Trofie are one of my favorite shapes, and glad to hear the dish worked out for you.
With the husband out of the country for a week, I promised myself a little vaca from cooking. But walking home from the metro last night, that promise was forgotten when I saw the baby zucchini in the outer bin of the green grocer, and then the cheese shop next door with good quality malfadine… No fresh basil at home thanks to last week’s storm, but the the ever-so-bright lemon thyme survived. Well hello yummy dinner that was so easy to prepare that it wasn’t like cooking at all! Thank you Elizabeth for leading me astray 🙂
Yes, it works just as well for one as for a dinner party!
Made this today for lunch for our girls – yum!! Thank you! Now I just need to break down one of these days and get some of these lovely plates…..
The plates make it taste even better. Plus, it’s supporting local artisans, which I know you want to do, so at least there’s that excuse. 🙂
Another simple, veggie driven pasta and one I make a lot…always sad to see the end of local season! The Pecorino looks fabulous! From Sardinia I think? They make fabulous cheeses there. Loving Ottolenghi’s stuff! When you need an interesting veg. check out Ottolenghi!
The pecorino that I used was local, from Lazio, but any one you like will do. Just not that nasty industrial stuff they sell under the name of pecorino romano. And of course am a huge fan of all of Ottolenghi’s books and restaurants!
Dear Elizabeth
Such a joy to receive your recepies ! I love the way you cook , you like me prefer to improvise with wht you have around most of the time! Great!
Julia
Grazie!