Slow Cooked Lemon & Courgette Pasta

Hi,

I am growing my own courgettes for the first time, and they are yielding a lot  - a LOT - of crop!

So I am having to start to think of different ways of using them to keep them interesting! Below is a recipe for a pasta dish I made the other night.

I used two courgettes, one was cooked down as a sauce base and the other lightly cooked to retain its fresh flavour.

Lemon & Courgette Farfalle

Cooking time 30 mins.

• 2 Courgettes

• 1/2 Lemon (Juice)

• 6 Mint Leaves

• 1 TSP Dried Oregano

• 50g Grated Parmesan

• 2 Garlic Cloves

• 1 Small Red Onion (1/2 Large)

• 200g Farfalle (or other pasta)

• 200ml Stock

Method

1. Slice the onion and start to sweat on a medium heat in a pan (we want a light caramalisation to start). Add in the Garlic (chopped up) and cook for a further minute before adding one of the Courgettes (cut into quarters length ways, then slice as thinly as you can - the aim here is to cook this into an almost puréed consistency). Get some colour into the Courgette s before adding Oregano and then covering with stock.

2. Get a pan of water on for your pasta and season heavily. Slice the remaining courgette into ribbons on a Mandolin (if you don't have a Mandolin, I would recommend cutting julienne).

3. Keep topping up the base sauce to prevent Courgettes catching in the pan. When the Courgette's are starting to breakdown (about 20 minutes) put pasta into the boiling water (put a timer on for 1 minute less than the recommended cooking time).

4. Once pasta is in the water add the Lemon Juice and grated parmesan to your sauce base.

5. Keep an eye on your sauce adding spoons of pasta water when needed to prevent it catching (this will also season, so you may need to change to adding water fr the tap to prevent over seasoning). When timer for pasta goes off drop in your Ribbons of Courgette to the pasta water. And add mint chiffonade (thinly sliced) to your sauce.

6. As soon as courgettes are translucent (30-60 seconds) drain pasta and immediately add to sauce - the Farfalle will trap some cooking water - cook out the dish on a high heat stirring constantly until you have a consistent sauce covering pasta (about 30 seconds) and then serve!

This dish would be great with some toasted pine nuts, or fresh dressed rocket on the top, or maybe a little cream running through the sauce!

Have a go and let me know how you get on, did you make any tweaks?

Whilst you're here check out my YouTube channel, slowly filling with content!

Thanks/bye

Rob

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