Meredith reminded me about this pasta a couple of days ago.
Our friend Hilton introduced us to this dish years ago (like me, he too is a fan of Marcella Hazan).
My version is a slight twist on her original–(using olive oil instead of butter and adding the lemon zest).
It’s the quickest, delicious pasta I have ever had–and so simple!
The sauce is made in 5 minutes while the pasta is cooking.
for 2
a large pan of water
100gms/4oz of wholewheat spaghetti–Meredith thinks that a flat pasta like fettucini would catch the sauce better–hard to find wholewheat fettucini though
three sprigs of fresh rosemary
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves–pulped
1 vegetable stock cube (I use organic)–crumbled
the zest a lemon
2 tablespoons parmesan–grated.
some chopped parsley to add at the end–for the look.
- Cook the spaghetti in the salted water until al dente–or to your taste.
- Meanwhile heat the oil in a small sauce pan and on a low heat cook the rosemary and garlic until the garlic begins to colour–about 5 minutes.
- Add the crumbled stock cube, stir thoroughly–and turn off the heat.
- Drain the pasta and put it in a warm bowl.
- Strain the oil through a sieve and add it to the pasta with the cheese.
- Turn it all over to coat the pasta with the oil and sprinkle the lemon zest and parsley on top.
- We picked the not-too-brown garlic bits out of the sieve and scattered them over the pasts too!
I love that something so deliciously simple and healthy is so quick to make. Not sure if I have seen wholewheat fettuccine, will have to keep an eye out for it next time I visit our local shop.
So my question, do you use a garlic press? What do you mean by pulped? Is that smashed with a knife and then chopped or did you put it in a blender/chopper? thanks.
Good question and I should have been clearer.
I put the garlic cloves in a mortar with a pinch of salt and pestle them!–ie pound them.
Is the pestle just a personal preference vs grating it, or does it cook better pulped and hence a better flavour? thanks.
It’s good either which way, I think.Just needs to be broken up small.
Barilla has whole wheat linguine that’s quite delicious.
Thanks for the tip, Patricia.
Just this second invited friends for dinner then wondered what to feed ’em. It shall be this, using our own pasta which we can whip up faster than a trip to the supermarket. Splendid!
Delicious with home-made pasta I’ll wager.
I’ve actually been too busy to catch up with the blog – normally unheard of! The exquisite experience of your Italian travel is greatly inspiring – and the subsequent recipes. I am about to try this one, now. I was fascinated to learn that it took one whole tree to produce a litre of olive oil – I will be even more respectful of every little tree from now on. Given the equipment we have now and the agriculture of classical Greece, it doesn’t seem so surprising that the much prized trophy for the winner of the Olympic Games was a cask of the best olive oil.
I didn’t know that–thanks, Sheila.
Good to hear you’ve got a new cookbook coming out next year, Mr. Ellis.
Recently, I’ve been trying different sorts of tea from the Health shop. My favourite was Dandelion and burdock tea made with hawthorn leaves. It is for the body’s general well being and it tastes nice.
In the shop, they told me about peppermint tea being good for the stomach, camomile tea helps people to sleep better. They had liquorice and cinnamon tea but I didn’t know that liquorice raises blood pressure. We learn something new every day.