A simple pasta is a life saver. How many nights are you rescued from eating out of a box just because you know how to throw together a good simple pasta? First tip: Don’t just rely on tomato sauce to coat the pasta. I love good sweet, milky ricotta and when I’m at a store where I can find it I tend to go overboard and buy a bit too much. So it’s ricotta on toast for breakfast, ricotta with fruit for lunch and ricotta as the “sauce” for a quick seasonal pasta.
In this dish I started with ricotta, then saw I had some pesto, added a couple of tablespoons of that, then added some crunchy sweet baby tomatoes and slices of green onion. While I was waiting for my pasta water to boil I discovered a couple of tiny zucchini with flowers attached and an ear of corn that needed to be used up. So I cut the niblets off the corn, sliced the zucchini in half lengthwise and shredded the flowers with my fingers.
I added them during the last five minutes of pasta cooking time. Voila. The (extremely critical) Mom gave it two thumbs up. The big “technique” here is to add a few tablespoons of pasta cooking water to the ricotta mixture to loosen it so that is coats the noodles. I didn’t add parmesan because I wanted the clear flavors of the vegetables to dominate. But please add it if you’re a cheese hound.
This idea of adding quick cooking vegetables to pasta cooking water is something to keep in mind when you shop at Farmers Mkts and always have veg in the fridge that you need to use. Spinach leaves? Dill? Cauliflower? You get the picture.
* What is good ricotta? It’s ricotta made in the real Italian style. It’s been allow to drain of whey so it’s drier. Whole Foods and Costco carries Angelo and Franco’s which actually is packed in a little basket. Most restaurants either make their own or buy it from Gioia Cheese which is where I bought mine for Angeli for years. You can find Gioia at Bay Cities Italian Deli in Santa Monica and Monte Carlo in Burbank. If you know of anywhere else to find it in LA or elsewhere please share in the comments section.
Spaghetti with Ricotta, Pesto, Tomatoes, Corn, Zucchini
Ingredients:
In the Bowl:
1 cup ricotta
5 baby tomatoes cut in half
1 green onion trimmed and cut into thin slices, use green part
2 tablespoons prepared pesto
Salt and Pepper to taste
2-3 tbsp pasta cooking water
With the Pasta in the Cooking Water:
1 ear corn shucked
4 baby zucchini trimmed and cut in half horizontally OR
1/2 zucchini cut into thin slices
flowers attached to baby zucchini (optional)
200 gms spaghetti enough pasta for 2 people
grated parmesan or pecorino for garnish (optional)
Instructions:
Making the Sauce:
Put the ricotta, pesto, tomatoes, green onion in a bowl. Once the pasta is cooking, take a couple tablespoons of the cooking water and put it in the bowl. Stir the ricotta and other ingredients briefly to allow the water to loosen the ricotta. If you feel it needs a bit more loosening add more pasta cooking water 1 tbsp at a time. Do not let it get too watery. You want the ricotta to act as a sauce to coat the pasta.
Cooking Pasta and Veg:
Bring water to a rolling boil. Add salt to taste. Add pasta and give a stir. Stir again after 3 minutes to prevent sticking. When pasta is half cooked add the corn, zucchini and zucchini flowers if using. Cook until pasta is al dente. Before you drain it make sure you added the pasta water to the ricotta mixture to loosen it. Drain pasta in colander or sieve and put into bowl with ricotta mixture. Use tongs or two forks to toss pasta well in sauce. Serve immediately. Pass the parmesan or pecorino if desired.
Evan Kleiman is an active speaker on culinary subjects as well as issues of food culture and sustainability and, just to keep a balance, she has a very public love affair with Pie. She’s been called the Jerry Garcia of cooking with the freewheeling improvisation she brings to the kitchen. You can follow her exploits on her blog at http://www.evankleiman.com/