Bright green pasta
Colourful cooking as an antidote
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Colour. I need it. We need it. More now than ever. To bring cheer, to bring hope, to bring gladness.
I have a bright red (I looked up the shade of red, it’s called summer flame) cardigan that I wear on days when it’s grey in the sky. Whether it's that particularly red cardigan, a winter salad that looks like a painting, or the art on my walls, colour has been filling my days. It's been intentional and it kept my January spirits high.
Where food and art meet is a place I love to be. A Jackson Pollock splatter of pink on the leaves of a Castelfranco lettuce or a heavy bowl of Cezanne oranges. Without wanting to sound too much like an art GCSE project, when I cut a pear I think of William Scott and any time I unpack a big vegetable shop onto my counter I am in a Caravaggio state of mind. I’ve really been leaning into the space where art and food meet and there is more to come on that soon, fun and uplifting - not worthy - I promise.
Never more than at this time of year I unpack my veg delivery or my shopping bag in genuine wonder. Pomegranates like huge fuchsia cricket balls, winter tomatoes still green and striped that stay crisp and salted in a way summer ones never do. Oranges, so many - blood oranges, cara cara oranges, tangerines, kumquats, mandarins. Lemons with leaves. Radicchio in the brightest of brights - magenta and puce petals. Stalks of rhubarb as red as a stick of rock. Kale in deep sea green. There is colour on colour. The brightest we see. Just when we need it. It feels to me a reminder that, amidst the deep greys of winter ,hope and colour are always here. The food I eat has felt like a painting.
January is one of my favourite months for eating. Often it’s a month long simmer of soups and stews or smoothies and salads at a time when, in my opinion, we need the joy and nurture of food the most.
So I am making my cooking this winter colourful. I’ve got a series of recipes for you which celebrate colour and what a great time to be in kitchen January is. I’m going to make the most of the out-of-this-world colour and flavour on offer. Food that invigorates with its colour and comforts and restores with its flavour and makes us glad.
First is this green pasta. It feels very right to me to eat this now. It's a big bowl of pasta and greens. It uses greens in two ways. First in a green sauce that gives me a lift with its minerally freshness. And the other half of the greens are cooked until crisp at the edges with garlic and chilli and lemon and they add texture. The deep green of this sauce will make you want to get a paintbrush out.
I blanch the greens before making the sauce, it’s a step I would often skip, but for this recipe you have a pan of water on for the pasta anyway so it’s the work of a couple of minutes and it softens and mellows the greens and their flavour, as well as making sure you have the most vibrant green sauce.
To make the green sauce I use a blender. I used a bullet blender but a stick blender and a jug would work just as well.
If you wanted a spoonful of bright white ricotta in the middle of your bowl too, it would add a blank canvas of creaminess and would be really fun to stir into the green sauce.
I’ve also made this with some chickpeas (butter beans would also work) - I’d use ½ a drained jar or a 400g tin. Warm them in the pan you used for the greens then stir them in with the green sauce. Pleasing but not needed.
I dare you to splatter some of the green sauce like its paint around your bowl. I did. This pasta makes me very happy.
Pasta with green sauce and crispy garlic greens
Getting two textures from one ingredient is something I am into. There is silky green sauce and crisped garlicky kale.
Remember to keep some of your pasta water when you drain the pasta, it’s key to a creamy sauce.
Prep 10 min
Cooking 20 min
Serves 4
400g kale or cavolo nero, leaves stripped off the stalks and torn into bite-size pieces, stalks finely chopped
A large (about 40g) bunch of basil, including stalks is fine
1 unwaxed lemon
50g of Parmesan (a vegetarian one if needed)
6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 pinch dried chilli flakes, or to taste
400g dried pasta – I use calamarata but rigatoni or paccheri would be great
Put your pasta water on
Fill a large pan with very well-salted water – it should be salty like the sea – and bring to a boil. Grate the zest from the lemon into a small bowl for later.
Blanch the greens in the pasta water
Dunk the leaves from the 400g of greens into the boiling water for two minutes then use tongs or a slotted spoon to lift the greens out of the pan into a colander. Leave the pan of water on the heat for your pasta topping it up with hot water from the kettle if needed.
Make the green sauce
Put half of the blanched greens into a blender with the 40g bunch of basil. Add the juice of ½ of the lemon, grate in half (25g) of the parmesan and add the 4 tablespoons of olive oil and a good pinch of sea salt. Add 2 tablespoons of the hot water from the pan. Whizz until you have a smooth bright green sauce adding a little more water if it feels thick.
Cook the pasta
Drop the pasta into the boiling water you cooked the kale in and cook for a minute less than the packet instructions.
Cook the crispy garlic and kale
While the pasta is cooking heat the last tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, add the chopped stalks from the greens and the 2 sliced cloves of garlic cook until the edges of the garlic begin to turn light golden brown. Now turn up the heat and add the other half of the kale, a pinch and dried chilli and cook the kale until the kale begins to crisp at the edges. Once the kale is crisp take the pan off the heat and add the zest you have kept from earlier and take off the heat.
Finish and bring everything together
When the pasta is ready (I cook it a tiny bit under al dente) drain it, reserving a mugful of the cooking water, then return the pasta to the pan and stir in green sauce add add most of the rest of the remaining (25g) parmesan. Add the reserved pasta water little by little and toss until you have a smooth, silky sauce coating all the pasta. Toss through the crisped kale and spoon into bowls and finish with a good final grating of parmesan.
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This looks delicious. I'm revelling in the cold, grey weather to eat bowl food 3 times a day. Pasta is perfect and with a hubbies for whom a meal is mot complete without green on it, this is perfect 👌 💚
Delish . Thanks 🙏