ZESTY COURGETTE & RICOTTA SPAGHETTI WITH PINE NUTS & MINT
Serves 2
• A small handful of pine nuts
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 180g (6¼oz) dried spaghetti
• 2 medium courgettes
• A goodg lug of olive oil, plus extra to serve
• A knob of butter
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• Grated zest of ½ a lemon
• 100g (3½oz) ricotta cheese
• 2 mint sprigs, leaves picked and shredded
• 1-2tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
Put a kettleful of water on to boil and find a saucepan large enough for cooking the spaghetti in.
Put the pine nuts in the saucepan and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring, until pale brown and toasted. Tip onto a plate for later.
Pour the boiling water into the same pan, bring it back to the boil and add a generous amount of salt, followed by the spaghetti. Cook according to the packet instructions.
Meanwhile, shave the courgettes into ribbons using a swivel peeler: firstly, peel and discard three strips of skin off the courgettes, leaving a gap between each one to produce a stripy effect. Then peel off long ribbons, working around the outside of each courgette and turning after each strip. Most ribbons should have a strip of green skin along the edges.
Stop at the core of seeds and discard.
Reserve a mugful of pasta cooking water, then drain the spaghetti and leave in the colander.
Heat the olive oil and butter in the same pan. Add the courgette ribbons and garlic. Fry on a high heat very briefly (a couple of minutes), gently stirring, until the ribbons only just begin to wilt. Remove from the heat, season, then add the spaghetti and lemon zest and toss. Put the pan back on the heat and mix together gently – tongs are easiest for this – and loosen with a little reserved pasta water, if necessary. Divide between two bowls.
Dot the pasta mixture with blobs of ricotta, nestling it into the pasta with the back of a spoon so that it melts a little. Season, then scatter with the toasted pine nuts, the mint, a good swirl of olive oil, and lastly, the Parmesan. Tuck in and enjoy.