Amy’s Midweek Puntarelle ‘Green Pasta’

Puntarelle (meaning ‘little tips’), also known as Cicoria di Catalogna (Chicory of Catalogna), is an Italian chicory and winter green born with a fulfilling crunch and a bitter bite. We recommend you serve this one with a side salad of radicchio leaves (we have those growing too!). The recipe is lovingly brought to you by Amy, our brilliant Food Hub Co-ordinator. You can read more about her here!

Ingredients

One healthy head of Puntarelle
Bunch of Parsley
Couple of Anchovies
Garlic X3 cloves
Little bit of Preserved lemon
EVOO
Salt & Freshly Cracked Pepper
Any hard Italian cheese on hand
Pasta (recommended shapes: Casarecce, Strozzapreti, Garganelli or Trofi - as you can see I didn’t have any of those on hand)
Pasta water
If you have stale bread, make breadcrumbs by blending them and then slowly frying them off with some chilli flakes and salt

Process (loose, up for interpretation)

• Separate the leaves from the stalk component of the puntarelle.

• Add some hot water to a saucepan and drop any leaf bits in, blanching for 4 minutes. Once done, chill in icy water and then rinse and add to a blender.

• Stalks - Blanch in water for 3-4 minutes, or until just tender. Remove the puntarelle and drain.

• Back to your blender - chop parsley and add it to the leaves, adding salt, EVOO and the preserved lemon along with one anchovy. Blend but leave chunky!

• Bring a pot of water to the boil. Add salt and bring to the boil again. Cook the pasta. You’re going to be done so soon it’s just magical.

• Heat the EVOO in a pan and melt the anchovies into it, with the garlic clove.

• Add the puntarelle and let it cook for a few minutes, stirring continuously. Add in the parsley mix.

• Drain the pasta and add to the puntarelle and parsley mix, slowly adding pasta water if required and stirring that in first. Top with the breadcrumbs.