SQUASH MAFALDINE, CAVOLO NERO GREMOLATA & PANGRATTATO*
*speedy squash pasta, green salsa and crispy garlicky bread crumbs of your DREAMS
Welcome to The Late Plate, where I share with you the recipes I am cooking at home in my warehouse. I live communally with six other people, we each pay £25 a week into a kitty and that collectively pays for all of our weekly food costs. One person cooks dinner each night of the week for everyone else, so that every night of the week there is a delicious dinner that will feed us all. The food we eat is largely vegetarian, seasonal, healthy and affordable, and I can’t wait to share some of those recipes with you here!
Maybe it’s just me, but come this time of year I am constantly torn between the deep urge to work squash into almost every meal and the dread of having to peel and chop anything gourd related. It always takes longer than I want it to, it leaves my hands dyed orange and it’s absolutely fraught with the possibility I will slip and cut my thumb off. So, if like me, you love squash, but you hate the admin, there is a hack in this recipe which is going to turn Autumn around for you. For visual learners like me, I made a recipe reel which you can see here. Cooking squash this way literally saves you all the time and hassle that peeling it entails. You just have to think ahead enough to preheat your oven and you are good to go. Once you have your squash ready to rock and roll this whole recipe comes together in the time it takes to cook the mafaldine, so let this be your new, go to, quick pasta, perfect for these crispy cold Autumn nights.
My housemate Tom said it’s the best thing I have made in months, which is saying something. I hope you love it as much as he did. x
SQUASH MAFALDINE, CAVOLO NERO GREMOLATA & PANGRATTATO
The title of this recipe sounds fancy, but in reality it’s just a great, seasonal, quick pasta. So here’s the deal, Mafaldine is a very fun pasta shape, Bucatini would also work very well and Spaghetti or Linguine would be just fine. Use what you have, or go out and treat yourself to fancy pasta - it will taste just as good either way. Gremolata is usually made with parsley but I have used Cavolo Nero because it’s in season, I love the deep green brassica colour it gives and I think it tastes better than parsley - even though I LOVE parsley, let’s not get it twisted. Pangrattato is simply fried garlic bread crumbs, it’s often referred to as “poor man’s parmesan” which is, to be fair, how we are using it here, but let me be the first to say it’s great in addition to parmesan too. I have included an easy plant based substitution for the parmesan, so this one can be for your vegan friends too. I am a salty sour girl, and I always need to pair a sweet vegetable, like squash with something salty acidic to balance everything out. For me, the combination of this sweet creamy sauce, with the sour Gremolata and salty Pangrattato, is *chefs kiss*.
Let me know what you think in the comments x
Serves 6
Ingredients:
1 medium squash
1 whole bulb of garlic, the top cut off to expose the cloves
80g parmesan grated as finely as possible (to make this vegan substitute with a vegan cheese of your choice, or 2tbsp of nutritional yeast)
100ml vegetable stock
500g Mafaldine (Bucatini, or Spaghetti, or Linguine)
70g stale bread
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
50g Cavolo Nero (leaves stripped off the stem)
1 lemon (zested and juiced)
4 tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper to season
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200c
Prepare the squash by halving it and scooping out the seeds. Place the halves in a roasting tin cut side up, drizzle with two tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt & pepper.
Place the whole bulb of garlic inside the well of one half of squash, where the seeds once were, and then turn both halves cut side down, with the bulb of garlic tucked inside one. Roast for 1.5 hours in the oven. Cooking the squash this way means that all the steam is trapped beneath the skin, cooking the flesh and the garlic to a soft jammy consistency. You know the squash is done when a knife slips easily all the way through.
Whilst your squash cooks, make the Pangrattato by blitzing the stale bread, one clove of garlic and a pinch of salt & pepper in a blender. Once they have reached your desired consistency, toast in a frying pan in one tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat until golden brown (or if you enjoy charred food like me, a little darker than golden brown)
Make the Gremolata by blending the Cavolo Nero, two cloves of garlic, the zest & juice of the lemon, it should look like a dry pesto. Then stir through two tablespoons of olive oil, taste and season with salt & pepper.
Remove the squash from the oven and turn it cut side up, allowing the steam to escape. Scrape all the flesh out of the squash skin, take the bulb of garlic and squeeze all the cloves out, and transfer the lot, with any roasting juices, into a large sauce pan along with the veg stock. Discard the squash and garlic skins. Set the pan of squash, garlic, veg stock and juices over a medium heat.
Bring a large pan of water to the boil, salt and add the pasta, cook until al dente. (I usually set a timer for one minute less than the packet instructions - fear of over cooked pasta runs deep)
Whilst the pasta cooks, add the parmesan to the squash pan, along with a ladle of pasta water and blend until smooth with a stick blender. This will simultaneously melt and emulsify the cheese into the sauce.
When the pasta is cooked, transfer it to the sauce with a pair of tongues, leaving the starchy water in the pan, so you can still add more if neccessary.
Toss the sauce and pasta vigorously, adding a drop more pasta water if it seems too thick, mixing and tossing until all your pasta is coated in the glossy sauce.
Serve with a dollop of the Gremolata and a sprinkle of Pangrattato.
Buen apetito x
