Elizabeth Hewson’s green pasta recipe: the perfect mid-week meal
This dish is simple but flavor packed, featuring everyday ingredients for a light and healthy mid-week meal.
What qualifies as a good mid-week meal at your place? In our household it needs to satisfy a few criteria, starting with being quick and easy. There’s nothing worse than being surrounded by hungry mouths watching your every stir. It also must feature everyday ingredients; that means, things I can pick up easily after work and are approachable (meaning they fit into the weekly budget). Additionally, it can’t have too many steps or require too many pots and pans. As I am the cook in our family, my husband takes on the role of cleaner-upper. Mid-week, he has a strict two pot/dish/vessel policy (he grants me more leeway on the weekends), which means I must keep steps to a minimum out of fear I will need to help with the dishes. Finally, the dish should make us all feel good. We want to eat reasonably healthy and light mid-week, saving the heavier, multi-course meals for weekend eating.
One of our regular mid-week meals, this vibrantly green pasta fits all these criteria and will brighten your week. This dish uses broccolini (a veg often found in the bottom of my fridge drawer). It’s also adaptable for a lot of other greens you may have on hand. Cavolo nero and kale can be substituted in, or use broccoli (goes without saying, stems included), frozen peas or spinach. And if you find yourself with, say, half of the required broccolini, you could make it up with a mix of the above. If you’ve got some lying around, throw in some soft herbs — parsley, chives, basil — at the blending stage for added flavour.
At the other end of the meal, this chocolate and hazelnut cake is a family recipe we enjoy often. See how to make it here.
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RECIPE: Green pasta
Ingredients
- 1 bunch broccolini
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- 2 cups baby spinach
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup Parmigiano Reggiano/Grana Padano/parmesan
- Salt flakes and pepper
- 1-2 anchovy fillets, optional
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- Dried linguine pasta or your favourite dried pasta
To serve
- 2-3 tablespoons, goats curd, feta or ricotta
- Dried chilli flakes, optional
Method
- Bring a large pot of water to a rapid boil. Season as salty as the sea. Trim ½ cm or so off broccolini stems (I often find these dry and tough). Plunge broccolini and whole garlic clove into your boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes. Right at the last 10 or so seconds, add your baby spinach to wilt. Using tongs, pluck out broccolini, garlic and baby spinach, dripping wet and put straight into a blender. You’ll end up with about 1cm of cooking water in the bottom of your blender.
- Ensure your now green tinted cooking water is back boiling, and throw in your dried pasta, cook until al dente.
- Back to your sauce, add olive oil, Parmigiano Reggiano, zest of 1 lemon and a generous pinch of salt flakes. Blitz for a few minutes until the sauce is brilliantly green, creamy and thick. Taste and season if required. Keep aside until pasta is cooked.
- Drain pasta, reserving ½ cup of cooking water. Add pasta back into the saucepan and pour over green sauce along with a squeeze of lemon juice. Give everything a good stir to bring it all together, adding a splash of cooking water if things need help loosening up. You’re after a sauce that coats each strand but is still loose and creamy. Taste and check if more lemon or seasoning is needed.
- Serve immediately with nuggets of goats curd, chilli flakes, shower of Parmigiano Reggiano and an extra drizzle of olive oil. Serves 2-3