Courgette and lemon tagliatelle

Cooking can be a bit of a drag sometimes. Not all of the time, in fact most of the time it isn’t but then there are those days. The kind of days that trot off selfishly; leaving you with the evening, in the kitchen, faced with a hungry stomach, and a solitary courgette.

So, here we are, one day last week, the courgette and me, with the future looking pretty bleak. A courgette, all by itself on the work-top, appears devoid of even the slightest potential. Not so.

This all changed after I remembered an article I had read a few weeks ago about Anna Del Conte in the Observer Food Monthly. Nigella Lawson was paying homage to her as the unsung heroine of cookery writing. Adoration aside the one thing that had stuck out in my mind was the beautiful simplicity of Anna’s recipes. There was no need for a truck load of ingredients in any of them. Her risotto was lemon juice, Parmesan, cream and rosemary in the main. No white wine, no glaze, and no three pans on the go whilst you cook off some mushrooms and asparagus. If ever there was a case for simplicity is best this was it. The flavours in her risotto were so pronounced yet equally as effortless. It was a flavour pairing that would stick in my mind for a long while yet.

Back with the courgette and thinking about Anna’s risotto I rummage a bit deeper into the fridge and come across a lemon, an egg and some parmesan left-over from a weekend’s frivolity (and probably of risotto making). There’s some pasta floating about too somewhere. I’m thinking of a lemon-y carbonara type sauce, and instead of bacon, of thinly slicing this courgette, crisping the slices in some olive oil, adding a little garlic, shallots and rosemary and whipping up a cream, egg, Parmesan, lemon juice and zest sauce to throw over it, off the heat, at the last minute before serving. No curdling, off the heat, a slick creamy sauce, with the fragrant rosemary, and the sharp tangy contrast of lemon was a perfect solution to this courgette conundrum. Delicious.

Courgette and lemon tagliatelle

Ingredients:

30 g butter

Olive oil for drizzling

300g tagliatelle

1 medium sized courgette

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

70ml single cream

2 egg yolks

Jucie and zest 1 lemon

1 sprig of fresh thyme

1 sprig of fresh rosemary

100g Parmesan, a little more for topping

Salt and pepper for seasoning

Thinly slice the courgette into fine discs with a sharp knife.

Peel and roughly chop the garlic and onion. Whizz to a fine paste, with a little olive oil, with a hand held blender. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Boil a large pan of slated boiling water on a medium heat. Whilst bringing to the boil get a large heavy based skillet type pan and melt the butter over a low heat so as not to brown.

When the butter is bubbling add in the slice courgette discs and cook for 2 minutes until they begin to soften. Grate in half the lemon zest and squeeze in the juice of half the lemon.

Stir and cook for a further minute. Now shred the herbs off their stalks and roughly chop. Stir them into the courgettes along with the garlic and onion paste and cook for 2 minutes more. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Whilst cooking whisk the 2 egg yolks with the cream and 100g Parmesan.

Drain the pasta and reserve a cup full of the cooking water (about 100ml). Add the cooking water to the courgettes and turn up the heat a little. Stir a little more to slightly cook off some of the water.

Toss through the drained pasta. Stir through a teaspoon more of extra butter. Grate in the extra half of lemon zest and squeeze in the remaining juice of half the lemon.

Remove form the heat. Stir through the cream and egg mix. Turn out on to two or three plates and scatter with a little extra Parmesan.