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Spinach pici pasta
Baby courgettes, tomatoes & pine nuts
Spinach pici pasta
Serves 4
Cooks In50 minutes
DifficultyNot too tricky
Nutrition per serving
Tap For Method
Ingredients
- 200g baby spinach
- 300g Tipo 00 or plain flour , plus extra for dusting
- olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- ½ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes
- 200g baby courgettes
- 320g ripe cherry tomatoes , on the vine
- 50g pine nuts
- ½ a bunch of fresh basil , (15g)
- 50g Parmesan cheese
- extra virgin olive oil
- 7 oz baby spinach
- 2¼ cups Tipo 00 or all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
- olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- ½ teaspoon dried red chili flakes
- 7 oz baby zucchini
- 11 oz ripe cherry tomatoes, on the vine
- 1¾ oz pine nuts
- ½ a bunch of fresh basil (½ oz)
- 1¾ oz Parmesan cheese
- extra virgin olive oil
Tap For Method
Tap For Ingredients
Method
- In a food processor, blitz the spinach and flour until a ball of dough forms, letting the machine do all the work. Touch the dough – it shouldn’t be sticky, you want a playdough consistency, so add a little more flour, if needed.
- To make the pici, simply tear off 2cm balls of dough and roll them out into long thin sausage shapes – think fine green beans – on a clean surface (the beauty is that they’re all different, so get little helpers involved, if you can).
- Cook the pici straight away, or leave them to dry out for a few hours, or even overnight.
- Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. Put a large frying pan on a medium heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Peel, finely slice and add the garlic, along with the chilli flakes.
- Finely slice and add the courgettes, then halve and add the tomatoes. Cook it all for 5 minutes, then stir in the pine nuts and add a ladleful of boiling water. Leave on the lowest heat while you cook the pasta.
- Add the pici to your pan of boiling salted water. If it’s freshly rolled it will only need about 5 minutes, but if you’ve let it dry give it 8 to 10 minutes, checking on it to make sure you get lovely al dente pasta.
- Drain, reserving a mugful of cooking water, then toss through the veg.
- Reserving the baby basil leaves, finely slice the bigger ones and stir into the pan with most of the finely grated Parmesan, loosening with a little reserved water, if needed.
- Divide between your warm plates and serve with a few drips of extra virgin olive oil, with the remaining Parmesan and the baby basil leaves sprinkled over.
- In a food processor, blitz the spinach and flour until a ball of dough forms, letting the machine do all the work. Touch the dough—it shouldn’t be sticky, you want a playdough consistency, so add a little more flour if needed.
- To make the pici, simply tear off ¾-inch balls of dough and roll them out into long, thin sausage shapes—think fine green beans—on a clean surface (the beauty is that they’re all different, so get little helpers involved, if you can).
- Cook the pici straight away, or leave them to dry out for a few hours, or even overnight.
- Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. Put a large frying pan on a medium heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Peel, finely slice, and add the garlic, along with the chili flakes.
- Finely slice and add the zucchini, then halve and add the tomatoes. Cook it all for 5 minutes, then stir in the pine nuts and add a ladleful of boiling water. Leave on the lowest heat while you cook the pasta.
- Add the pici to your pan of boiling salted water. If it’s freshly rolled it will only need about 5 minutes, but if you’ve let it dry give it 8 to 10 minutes, checking on it to make sure you get lovely al dente pasta.
- Drain, reserving a cupful of cooking water, then toss through the veg.
- Reserving the baby basil leaves, finely slice the bigger ones and stir into the pan with most of the finely grated Parmesan, loosening with a little reserved water, if needed.
- Divide between your warm plates and serve with a few drips of extra virgin olive oil, with the remaining Parmesan and the baby basil leaves sprinkled over.
