Ingredients
- 2 zucchini
- half an onion
- 200g pasta (fusilli, ziti or whatever you've got)
- a handful of fresh basil
- 100g ricotta (or more)
- parmesan or pecorina
- zest of half a lemon
- salt and pepper
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 chillies
Prep
In a pestle and mortar, grind garlic, basil leaves and black peppercorns. Add this to the ricotta, along with grated parmesan and lemon zest. This should make a fairly stodgy mixture that you will dilute later.
Instructions
Put a pot of water on for the pasta, let it come to the boil, add salt and then pasta. In the meantime, heat some olive oil in a pan and throw the chillies in there once it's warm. After a minute, add the zucchini (cubed or julienned) and fry it, don't be afraid to let it get some colour. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion. Add it to the zucchini and fry the mixture, if it's in danger of burning, use some pasta water. When the pasta is getting close to being done, take out some pasta water to add to your ricotta mixture, which then goes in the pan. Garnish with chillies and/or red pepper flakes, and a basil leaf or two.
Notes
I sometimes make stuffed zucchini, which involves scraping out their insides, which I will then recycle in this recipe. In this case, I will usually fry the onion first and add the zucchini later.