Whilst most of my recipes are original, every so often I come across a dish that's just so amazing I have to recreate it. This next recipe is one of them and based off a dish from the new vegan menu at Ask Italian - tagliatelle with pan fried courgettes, spinach, garlic and a hint of chili, with home-made olive tapenade and the sweetest, most incredible, roasted vine tomatoes.
Last weekend I was at home for Easter and tried some of the new menu items, including this dish, the aubergine pasta, the rosemary sea salt bread and their new chocolate orange tart for dessert. Ask have definitely hit the spot with this menu and I just couldn't wait to eat this next dish again. There's quite a lot of components for this dish, but you get 4 incredible servings of tagliatelle at the end, for the same price one would cost you at a restaurant. This would be the perfect dish to make if inviting some friends over, it's sophisticated and so delicious, yet all the steps are really quite simple! Plus - it goes really well with wine!
I made the tapenade using kalamata olives, capers, garlic and a few other seaonings, first I roughly chopped the ingredients, then combined using a pestle and mortar, for maximum flavour. Potentially you could use a food processor, but it may over-blend the mix, resulting in more of a paste than a tapenade or alternatively, you could finely chop all the ingredients and then mix them together.
This dish tastes so rich and flavourful, yet still light and fresh from the courgettes, spinach and tomatoes, so invite some friends over, open a bottle of wine and get cooking!
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Click here for printer friendly version
You'll need
- Baking dish
- Large frying pan
- Large sauce pan
- Colander
- Chopping board
- Knife
- Tongs
- Pestle and mortar
- Cup and spoon measures
Ingredients
Olive Tapenade- 1 clove garlic
- 20 capers
- 1 cup kalamata olives
- Juice 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 200g cherry tomatoes on the vine
- 2 large courgettes
- 2 large garlic cloves
- 1/2-1 red chili
- 2 large handfuls spinach
- 300g tagliatelle
- Black pepper
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Place the tomatoes, still on the vine in a baking dish, lightly drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast for 30-40 minutes.
- Meanwhile, to make the tapenade, roughly chop a clove of garlic and then crush it in the pestle and mortar, then add the capers and crush these too. Pit the olives if required, then roughly chop and add these to the pestle and mortar. Pound the mixture so the olives break down further and then add the lemon juice, cider vinegar, parsley, oregano and olive oil and mix again.
- Chop the courgette into chunks, fry with a splash of olive oil and season with a pinch of salt. Cook for 10 minutes, then mince two garlic cloves and add this to the pan. Slice the chili lengthways, remove the seeds, then finely chop 1/2 or the whole chili and add to the pan. Stir together, add the spinach and let it wilt, then remove from the heat.
- Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the tagliatelle for around 7 minutes in lightly salted water. Drain and add to the veg pan, toss together with a splash more olive oil and serve up in 4 dishes. Top with a generous spoon of the olive tapenade and the roasted vine tomatoes. Season with a pinch of black pepper and enjoy!
Cassidy xx
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