Whole-wheat pasta shouldn't be resigned to the back of Gillian McKeith's store-cupboard. If you buy the good quality organic stuff it has a beautiful nutty flavour that tastes much nicer than a lot of dried white pasta you can buy. Also, the brown stuff retains many more vitamins and minerals than white pasta, which loses a lot of its nutritional qualities as the white flour it's made from goes through an intense refining process, which strips the wheat out of it.
Pangritata translates from Italian as 'poor man's Parmesan', and is a mixture of toasted bread and herbs. You do discover when you add pangritata to pasta there is no need for additional Parmesan but perhaps if you do have it in add it as the pangritata starts to disappear for extra flavour. The basil pangritata I made here with the roasted lemony and tomato sauce and nutty linguine gives this dish a gorgeous Mediterranean flavour and it's a really easy meal to bang out on a whim.
Ingredients:
4 medium sized vine ripe tomatoes
1 red onion
1 red chilli
3 garlic cloves
30g / 1 oz capers
70g / 2.5 oz pitted black olives
1 lemon
8 tbsp olive oil
sea salt & black pepper for seasoning
6 large handfuls of bread-crumbs (whole-meal preferably)
large bunch of fresh basil
400g / 14 oz organic whole-wheat linguine
500g / 17 and half oz organic passata
Slice the onion in to fine half moons. Peel and thinly slice the garlic and tomatoes into discs. De-seed and finely chop the chilli. Place the onion, garlic, tomatoes and chilli on a large non-reactive baking tray. Sprinkle over the capers, olives, the zest and juice of half the lemon, 2 tbsps of the olive oil and sea-salt and black pepper. Place in the oven for 25 minutes.
Whilst this is cooking heat up 4 tbsps of the remaining olive oil in a heavy-based frying pan. Once warm add the bread-crumbs, and plenty of sea salt and black pepper. Shred a few good handfuls of basil and add to the crumbs after 3 minutes. Cook together for a minute more or until the bread-crumbs are golden. Drain on to kitchen paper and set aside.
Get a large pan of boiling salted water over a medium heat and bring to the boil ready for the pasta. Whilst this is boiling go back to the vegetables (these should be about half way through their cooking time) and pour over the passata. Give them all a good stir and return to the oven for the remaining 10 minutes or so. Just enough time for the passata to warm through and to pick up flavour from the ingredients already in there.
The pasta will need about 7 minutes in the boiling water. Keep checking it though as you want it to still have a firm bite. Once cooked drain and reserve about 150ml of cooking water from under the colander.
Add the pasta to a large serving bowl, with the cooking water, the remaining 2 tbsp of olive oil, the juice and zest of the other half of the lemon, all the ingredients from the oven tray, a few fresh torn basil leaves. Season to taste and serve into 4 bowls. Sprinkle generously with the toasted basil bread-crumbs (and some Parmesan if you aren't a poor man).
Add the pasta to a large serving bowl, with the cooking water, the remaining 2 tbsp of olive oil, the juice and zest of the other half of the lemon, all the ingredients from the oven tray, a few fresh torn basil leaves. Season to taste and serve into 4 bowls. Sprinkle generously with the toasted basil bread-crumbs (and some Parmesan if you aren't a poor man).
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