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Spaghetti with Zucchini and Pecorino

spaghetti {zucchini + pecorino}

Prep

Cook

Total

Yield 4

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Slice the zucchini into 1/4 inch slices.
  2. Pour the olive oil into a large pan big enough to hold all of the zucchini in one layer, more or less, and then all of the pasta afterwards.
  3. Heat the oil to medium high, then add the zucchini. Give it a good stir, then season with salt and hot pepper. Let cook over medium high heat without stirring too much. It’s good to let the edges get brown, but make sure you stop cooking before the zucchini turns to mush. This should only take 10 minutes, tops.
  4. In the meantime, bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until about 1 minute away from being done.
  5. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water.
  6. Add the drained pasta to the zucchini, and stir and mix over medium heat. Add 1/2 cup of the cooking water, and continue stirring. Turn off heat, and add both the cheese and the rest of the cooking water, alternating and stirring, to create a creamy consistency.
  7. Finally, mix in most of the basil.
  8. Serve into individual dishes and top with a bit more basil.

Notes

The success of these kinds of simple pastas relies on the quality of the ingredients. Top notch pasta is a given. Well made, imported, artisinal pasta from Italy really does make a huge difference. For this recipe I used a pack of Rustichella Primo Grano spaghettoni. Made with 100% Abruzzo grown heritage wheat. The pasta is made with bronze dies, which give it a rough texture, and dried over 50 hours at 35 degrees c. which preserves the original taste of the grain. While I often buy this when I can find it (oddly difficult in Italy) this pack was a gift from the folks at Manicaretti, who import it to the States. You can find a list of retail outlets here, including many that sell online. I was also able to find late season zucchini romanesche, which remain very firm when cooked. If you can’t find them, try to use baby zucchini, which won’t completely fall apart. I used some aged sheep’s milk cheese that Eugenia had brought me from Corsica. Hard enough to grate, but not as piquant or over bearing as pecorino Romano. Good substitutes would be and aged pecorino from the Siena area, or even one from Spain or France.

Recipe by Elizabeth Minchilli at https://www.elizabethminchilli.com/2014/11/spaghetti-zucchini-pecorino/