Here’s another quick pasta and zucchine dish. While tagliatelle alle zucchine is delicate and refined, this dish–using similar ingredients–has an entirely different character, rough and ready and full of flavor.
Fry zucchine sliced into disks in olive oil with a slightly crushed clove of garlic and a few fresh bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper. When the zucchine slices are lightly browned (see photo below left) turn off the heat and remove the bay leaves. In the meanwhile, boil your linguine in well salted water. When done, turn them into the pan with the zucchine and add a generous dollop of ricotta cheese and abundant pecorino cheese. Mix well, adding a ladleful of pasta water to make a ‘sauce’ that will coat the linguine well. Serve immediately topped with some more pecorino.
That’s all there is to it, but the result is incredibly satisfying.
Fried zucchine, ready for the pasta
NOTES: I ‘invented’ this dish at the spur of the moment, using things that I had on hand: zucchine, some ricotta left over from making the gnocchi nudi last Thursday, a bit of pecorino cheese–which I always have around–and the fresh bay leaves, which caught my eye while shopping. Of course, this dish isn’t really original–the combination of pasta, zucchine and ricotta is a classic. But my riff on the classic recipe was to substitute linguine, fresh bay leaves and pecorino for the usual penne, basil and parmesan. Shows you what you can do at the spur of the moment, with a bit of imagination and some knowledge of classic dishes.
Good “translation” of how this would be done in Italy.
Just finished reading a wonderful book that included stories of a childhood in deepest Provence, the cooking so reminiscent of your Angelina's, but of course we don't have the convenient pigs to feed our watermelon rinds to !! (I am so intrigued as to how the women never wasted anything.) I'm loving reading your delicious recipes and am truly looking forward to your linguine/zucchini/ricotta for supper for the troups on Sunday. Buon gusto!!
Well, thanks! Enjoy the blog. Hope to post more recipes soon.
I'm so happy to have found your blog. I'm very interested in Itlaian cooking and look forward to learning and trying your recipes!