Prep Time 15 Minutes
Serves 4
Cook Time 15 Minutes
Difficulty Easy
A wise woman once said that, faced with a dish that didn't taste quite right, a French chef would think about what ingredient to add while an Italian chef would think about what ingredient they could take away, stripping the dish down to its absolute essence. This recipe is something that we make along Italian principles. It depends on finding flavoursome, robust spinach where you can almost taste the iron, not the watery bland supermarket stuff. And, of course, the tomatoes have to be sweet and pert.
Ingredients
- Fresh tagliatelle, 500g/ 1.1lb
- Spinach, 400g/ 14oz
- Extra virgin olive oil, 7 tbsps
- Garlic, 3 cloves
- Tomatoes, 700g/ 1.5lb
- Salt & pepper
- Parmesan, freshly grated
Method
- Wash the spinach well and place in a colander to drip dry.
- Heat the olive oil in a saucepan on the lowest heat you can get. Cut the garlic into thin slices and fry in the oil- the test is to cook the garlic as slow as possible.
- Chop the tomatoes into decent chunks, cutting out the stalks.
- Boil some salty water and cook the tagliatelle with a bit of oil. At the same time put the spinach in on top of the garlic and oil but turn off the heat.
- When the pasta is cooked add this on top of the spinach and put the heat back on low. Stir everything together so the spinach is evenly spread.
- Season with lots of salt and pepper, add the tomatoes and stir once more. Don't cook the tomatoes too much, just heat them through.
- If it's looking a little dry, add a bit more olive oil. Serve immediately with some parmesan.