Preparation time: 15 minutes
Serves: 2 adults
Ingredients
250 g dried wholegrain fusilli pasta
5 g dried miyuk seaweed (sea mustard)
400 g fresh or frozen spinach
40 g cashews
3 cloves garlic
1 lemon
small bunch parsley
olive oil
seasalt and pepper
dried chilli flakes (optional)
Method
Cook fusilli pasta according to instructions in a pot of boiling water. Around 2-3 minutes before it is cooked, add the handful of dried miyuk or other seaweed.
While pasta is cooking, roughly chop fresh spinach (if using) and place fresh or frozen spinach into a frying pan. If using fresh spinach (or if the frozen spinach was not pre-chopped) remove from pan once it has reduced to half its size or less and mince with a large knife even more finely than pictured below. It needs to be fine enough that it can coat the pasta like a pesto. Return to pan and keep on a low heat.
Once you have both the spinach and pasta cooking, make your cashew garlic butter. Rough chop a small bunch of italian parsley. Smash three cloves of garlic in a mortar and pestle until smooth. Then add the parsley, a little seasalt, a very generous pour of nice olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, a sprinkle of chilli flakes and a large handful of cashews. Work it until you have a chunky butter as shown.
Drain the pasta and miyuk, retaining a little of the pasta water.
Squeeze additional lemon juice over the spinach and season lightly with pepper, chilli flakes and salt. Add the garlic butter to the spinach pan and combine well. Then tip in the pasta and a little of the water. Stir well.
To serve, top with chopped parsley, pepper, good quality olive oil and another sprinkle of chilli flakes. Bon app!
The story behind the recipe
It’s a Saturday night and I am home alone because the significant other is in Paris watching a rugby game. Live. Yes, life as we know it in Europe is returning, slowly but surely. I have zero enthusiasm for cooking for myself. I want something quick, easy, nutritious. And I haven’t shopped in days, so we’re running low on everything except the usual store cupboard supplies.
So I make pasta. I want a green pasta, but I have no herbs other than the parsley that has survived the winter out on the balcony. I’m thinking about spanakopita, about the way real tabbouleh is tiny flecks of white bulghur in the sea of green. I pull out a box of frozen spinach from the freezer. Craving greens? Frozen spinach is a godsend, snuggled up there right next to the peas. A convenience factor of ten out of ten. Unlike fresh spinach, which takes up half of the fridge and then reduces to nothing, frozen spinach comes pre-compacted and then delivers big. Perhaps, like me, you also have a slight disdain for the frozen vegetable aisle of the supermarket. Pfft, why would I shop there, when I could swing a handwoven basket from my shoulder and whistle as I promenade through the sunny market to handpick each perfect leaf of spinach? Wonderful, I am there with you. But for days when you’re not living in an idyll and reality bites and you just need to eat something quick for dinner? Keep some frozen spinach in the freezer.
Why seaweed? Regular readers will already know that I am on a mission to find ways to mainstream seaweed into Western cuisine, to make it a store cupboard staple. And the truth is, you barely notice it in this dish. There is already so much else going on, the bright green spinach and the punch from the fresh garlic, the way the spinach coats the fusilli as if it were a pesto, that the seaweed is just another interesting texture.
Off-the-cuff as it was, this dish does have some thought behind it. Protein sources: cashews, seaweed and whole grain pasta, no cheese. It is high in iron because of the spinach and seaweed, iron that you’re more likely to absorb because of the added vitamin C from the lemon juice. And while we are on the topic of iron, shall we quickly deal with the myth that becoming vegetarian means becoming anaemic. Not so, as long as you eat a varied and well balanced diet (cough, seaweed, cough).
The thing about this project is that it has taken on a life of its own. I thought I was creating it to record some of the food we already ate everyday. But instead I find myself thinking about what to cook as the week begins, paying more attention to what is in season and what is not (I see you blueberries). I am doing deep dives into the nutritional value of different foods, thinking about how we could eat more plants. I am devouring vegetarian cookbooks, including the new cookbook from The Green Kitchen (fun, quick ideas for families but perhaps not as mind-blowing as their first cookbook) and Ilene Rosen’s Saladish (the basic architecture of a salad: grains, vegetables, dressing, toppings/protein). I also read Simon Hopkinson’s The Vegetarian Option, which is great because it is organised by vegetables, but found it very heavy on the cheese and butter.
I have no idea how this will evolve, but I’m rolling with it. As always, comments or reactions welcome. If you try the recipe, let me know if you manage to cook it in under 15 minutes. Real life Ready Steady Cook! Thanks for coming along for the ride and see you next week.
Amelia.
Yum! We are in exactly the same situation tonight re: the lack of recent grocery shopping and I think we have all of the ingredients (with some substitutes). Thanks Amelia! 💚