spaghetti con zucchini
spaghetti with zucchini and pangrattato
'Spaghetti alla Nerano' is the classic zucchini (that's 'courgettes' if you speak French) pasta - fried discs of gorgeously sweet zucchini in a salty provolone sauce. It's one of my favourite few-ingredient pasta dishes, but can be tricky to get right - plus the large amounts of cheese and fried zucchini can actually make a seemingly light dish seem suddenly quite rich and heavy.
This is not that recipe. With similar basic flavours, this is a much lighter year-round alternative, despite adding 'pangrattato (crispy fried breadcrumbs) and fried fresh chilli.
NB I used a cheap hand-spiralizer to prepare the zucchini - if you haven't got one you could grate them coarsely or chop them into very thin strips.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
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prepare the pangrattato
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spiralise and then cook the zucchini
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blend some of them to make a sauce
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slice and fry the chilli
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boil the pasta
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combine and serve
pappardelle with red pepper sauce and smoked bacon
FOR FOUR PEOPLE
INGREDIENTS
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1 large courgette per person
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fresh chilli
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pecorino
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bread for pangrattato
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1 clove garlic
PASTA
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400g Martelli Spaghetti from
MANTECATURA
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slight
METHOD
You may have heard of pangrattato referred to as 'poor man's Parmesan', because it was often a substitute topping for pasta, in place of more expensive or unavailable cheese - consequently it has more of a heritage in Southern Italian pasta dishes and combinations.
You can make pangrattato with fresh or stale bread - I'm normally never organised enough to have a stash of stale bread to hand, so I almost always end up making pangrattato from scratch with fresh bread. Focaccia or ciabatta or denser rolls work better than sliced bread, and try to pick bread that doesn't have a really hard crusts.
Tear the bread into chunks and throw it in a blender with a drizzle of EVO. Blend it until you've got a fine consistency of breadcrumbs.
Begin to fry the breadcrumbs in a non-stick pan on a medium to low heat. Keep the breadcrumbs moving all the time and don't burn them! Add more oil if you want to, and any other flavours like garlic, anchovies and so on. Add salt if need be (probably not if you've put anchovies in!) and keep tasting all the time to make sure you're not overcooking the pangrattato.
I like pangrattato to be golden but not brown or nutty tasting, with a good crunch to it - almost as if you're biting into granulated sugar. When you get to the result you like, take the pan off the pan immediately and put the pangrattato into a bowl - if you leave it in the pan it'll probably overcook!
I used a cheap hand-spiralizer to prepare the zucchini - if you haven't got one you could grate them coarsely or chop them into very thin strips.
Fry the zucchini gently in olive oil, taking care not to burn them. When they're nicely tender, set about 2/3rds of them apart to mix with the pasta. Blend the remaining 1/3 with pecorino and a little olive oil to create a light sauce.
Thinly slice some fresh chilli and cook lightly in EVO until it's soft, then put it to one side.
Boil the pasta - if you're using fresh pasta, like I did, transfer it to a pasta pan with the blended sauce in it when it's about 1 min from being perfectly cooked. Toss to combine, then throw in the cooked zucchini and plate. Sprinkle with pangrattato and sliced chilli.