Courgette & Dill Pasta
Palm Greens x Northern Pasta
A simple pasta dish, celebrating the tail-end of courgette season. I like my courgettes either cooked extremely briefly with bite or cooked down like this so become really soft and almost sweet. This dish is the latter, lovely with Northern Pasta rigatoni, finished with a dollop of tahini and pumpkin seed gomasio style sprinkle.
You can get away with skipping the toppings if you want something fast and no fuss, but they do take the dish up a level.
You’ll have more gomasio than you need but it’s something I love to have on the shelf. Use as a seasoning for anything and everything, veg, soups, toasts, pastas!
Serves 2 (generously)
INGREDIENTS
225g pasta
120g extra virgin olive oil
2 small courgettes
400g, finely sliced
6 large cloves of garlic, grated
1 tsp salt
zest of 1 lemon, juice of ½ (+ ½ for tahini)
30g dill, roughly chopped
Whipped tahini
150g tahini
110g water
30g olive oil
1 clove garlic
juice of ½ lemon
½ tsp salt
Pumpkin seed gomasio
150g pumpkin seeds
½ tsp salt
1–2 dried chilli — I used arbol, but any dried red chilli or chilli flakes would work well
Method
Make the tahini. Weigh all ingredients into a blender and blend for a minute until light and fluffy.
For the gomasio, toast the pumpkin seeds in a wide-based pan over medium heat; once they take on colour and begin to pop, add the chilli for the last 10 seconds, then take off the heat. Pulse in a food processor or blender with the salt to a rough crumb.
Wipe our the pan you used for the pumpkin seed. Heat over medium heat, add the olive oil and then, once hot, the courgettes and salt. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and almost jammy. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, stirring.
In a separate pan, boil a generous amount of salted water; cook the pasta according to packet instructions, it should be al dente. Drain, saving the pasta water.
Grate the lemon zest into the courgettes, add the pasta, a ladle of pasta water, about 200ml - to loosen, along with lemon juice and dill. Stir through and cook for a couple of minutes so it comes together.
Serve finished with a dollop of the whipped tahini and sprinkle pumpkin seed gomasio.
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