Wholemeal Fusilli Pasta in a pumpkin and Leek sauce

We started to use wholemeal pasta for health reasons and we like it a lot. Good quality wholemeal pasta has a lower Gi which helps with weight loss and preventing diabetes.

giovedì 28 novembre 2024

Make sure that your pasta is made with good quality durum wheat. Make the sauce first and then you can add the pasta to sauté everything together.

For 4 People

Ingredients:

300 gr of wholemeal/ white or GF Fusilli pasta.

400 gr of Pumpkin, cubed in 2cm size. The mantovana variety is the best, or any other variety that once it’s cook it’s creamy and compacted not watery and stringy.

1medium leek, cut in half and sliced

1 small golden onion

2 small ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped in rough pieces.

EVO

Salt and pepper

Method:

For the Sauce:

Chop the onion finely and fry it in a large frying pan

Once the onion is golden, add the pumpkin and fry both for a few minutes.

Add the leek and immediately reduce the heat to avoid to burn it.

Fry everything for 4/5 minutes.

Add a little boiling water or vegetable stock to simmer the veggies, enough to cook the veggies but not to boil them!

Season to taste, then blitz half of the content in a blender to create a purée base. Keep it aside.

The sauce can be prepared in advance

For the pasta and sauce together:

In a large saucepan, bring to the boil the water, then salt it. Pasta cooked in too little water and with no or too little salt it’s not good. The flavours of the pasta gets enhanced with the salt. (I recommend 10g of rock salt per liter of water).

While the pasta cooks add a few large spoonfuls of the boiling water (now rich in starch and flavor) to the pan with the pumpkin and leek.

Drain the pasta and add it to the pumpkin and leek, sauté the pasta and veggies together, then add your vegetable purée at the end.

Stir everything for a minute, serve with some grated parmesan or pecorino cheese and enjoy!

Wine pairing from James MacNay (IWA);

My recommendation for this week is the wonderful Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato, made by the Montalbera winery in Piemonte. This rare red grape is utterly charming in its floral aromas (red rose, geranium), red berry notes, hint of black pepper and soft tannins. Pumpkin and leek are on the sweeter side, and it is made using a purée, so you need that ‘firm but gentle’ combination. Ruché can be served lightly chilled in the summer, and at room temperature the rest of the time.