Recipe-The Four P's (Pea and Pistachio Pesto Pasta!)
Want a super quick yummy dinner that uses what you have in the cupboard?
This pea and pistachio pesto pasta is a winner and has become one of our family favourites. The pasta sauce cooks in about the same time it takes to cook some dried pasta in boiling water- can I say anymore?!
These amounts serve 4 but are easy to scale up or down.
Ingredients
- 200 g frozen peas
- 1/2 of a clove of garlic
- 3 sprigs of fresh basil or mint
- 60 g pistachio nuts
- 60 g Parmesan cheese, plus extra for grating ( you can use any hard cheese)
- extra virgin olive oil
- 300g dried pasta (75g per person)
You can add any other veg or meat literally anything goes in this recipie!
Method
- Place the pasta in boiling water and follow cooking instruction on pack.
- Sit a sieve in the pan of pasta as it cooks, add the peas and blanch for 2 minutes.
- Peel the garlic and place in a pestle and mortar with a pinch of sea salt (remember our pistachios are salted so you may not want to add extra salt). Tear in the herb leaves and add the pistachio nuts.
- Drain the peas and add them to the pesto mix, then roughly blend it all up to whatever texture you like.
- Finely grate in the Parmesan and add about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil – enough to give you a spoonable consistency – then mix and season to perfection with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Drain the pasta, reserving a mugful of starchy cooking water. Toss with the pesto, loosening with some splashes of cooking water.
- Transfer to plates, adding extra grating of Parmesan.
Voilà! Dinner is served!!
Thanks to Jamie Oliver for giving us the inspiration behind this recipe.