Sunday 18 September 2011

Penne pasta with italian green sweet peppers and lemon sauce


Italian green sweet peppers. Not until I wrote this post I discovered the english translation for the italian word 'friggitelli'. Baby peppers, you could as well call them, as you have to pick them when they are young and crunchy. Italians love to fry them (hence the name 'friggitelli' from 'friggere' = to fry), but you can eat them raw, in a salad, for instance, or 'in pinzimonio'. 

Talking about the recipe, this is the kind of dish I cook on a regular basis during the summer, even though it's not one of our daughter's favourites ('What are those greenish things in your plate, mummy?'). This pasta is quite simple to make and cooking it will surely take you less time than it took me to wrote down the recipe... - especially translating it from italian to english- the title being one of the hardest task of my blogging adventure so far (how the hell do you say 'friggitelli' in english? I need to thank wikipedia once again for the amazing discovery).


Even writing these few lines happened to be hard work, I confess. I scrabbled down some notes as I was cooking, then changed them several times in my mind, and finally ended up with a completely different introduction for the post... had I waited any longer to write the post, it would not have been the right season anymore...



Ingredients (serves 4):

penne pasta: 340 gr / 12 ounces
italian green sweet peppers:8
- or alternatevely, 1 green bell pepper -
spring onion: 1
organic lemon zest: 1/5 teaspoon - grated
lemon juice: 1 + 1/2 tablespoon - filtered
parsley or chives: 1 tablespoon - roughly chopped
salt and pepper: to taste
extra v. olive oil

for garnish:

organic lemon zest - grated

Peel and finely chop the spring onion. Wash the green peppers, remove top and seeds and cut them into thin 5 cm (2 inches) long strips.
Heat two to three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil with some water (1/8 cup) in a small frying pan, then add the chopped onion. Cook for 15 minutes on a very low heat or until the onion has softened. Remove from heat and reserve.
Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a wok over a high fire until the oil surface ripples. Add the peppers and stir-fry them for about 15-20 minutes, until they shrink slightly and become tender. Add some water if necessary. Meanwhile prepare a citronette whisking together three tablespoons of olive oil, lemon juice and zest, salt an pepper.

Place a big pot of water over medium heat and bring to boil. Add salt and cook pasta 'al dente' according to cooking instructions. Sautè in the wok with the green peppers and onion over a medium heat, season with the citronette and finally add chopped parsley leaves.

Serve the penne pasta and garnish with grated lemon zest.




2 comments:

Shaheen said...

I do love the flavours here.

Roberta said...

Thanks Shaheen!

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