Pasta with lamb’s lettuce pesto

I’m going out for a bite this evening, so I decided to have something, shall we say, light for lunch. Pasta it was, without so much as a scrap of meat. How did I come up with it? Pure improvisation.

I checked what I had and it turned out I had practically everything you need for pesto. Except perhaps the basil or rocket. I wondered if lamb’s lettuce might work. And it did. I made an exceptionally punchy green pesto. No, don’t blame the lamb’s lettuce. That’s more down to the fresh garlic and shallots. If you don’t want quite that much bite, use one shallot and one clove of garlic instead of two of each.

That’ll do for today. Kaja’s teaching me to write short posts. Incidentally, she told me three things today. All of them terrifying.

First: “I did deadlifts today.”

Second: “Yesterday I made scrambled eggs without the yolks.”

Third: this film.

I’ll leave the deadlifts without comment. As for the eggs without eggs, I’ll keep quiet.

As for the film, though, they used to make better horror movies. See for yourselves:

Luckily she had one bit of good news too. It followed directly from those eggs without eggs. I asked, “So what did you do with the yolks?” “A lime and blueberry tart,” came the reply. See where this is going? There’ll be a new recipe soon. Kaja is becoming the blog’s expert on deadli… sorry, desserts.

Meanwhile, back to our pasta (spaghetti, to be precise) with lamb’s lettuce pesto, hot chilli and sun-dried tomatoes. Give it a go!

At a glance: 

Prep time: 20 minutes

Serves: the pesto makes 3–4 portions (the rest depends on how much pasta you use)

Calories: it’s spicy, so it kills all the calories and bacteria

Ingredients for the lamb’s lettuce pesto and the finished dish:

• half a bag of lamb’s lettuce
• a generous handful of freshly picked thyme
• two large cloves of fresh Polish garlic
• two shallots
• a small handful of cashews
• a piece of Parmesan (a little block about 2 by 4 cm)
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• a pinch of ground black pepper
• sun-dried tomatoes (about 10)
• a fresh hot chilli (a 5 cm piece)
• dried herbes de Provence
• pasta (I used spaghetti)
• salt

Method (this one’s hot):

First I cooked the pasta al dente, drained it and set it aside. It can even get cold. We’ll be heating it up again anyway.

Next I washed the lamb’s lettuce and put it in a tall plastic jug. In went the freshly stripped thyme leaves, cashews, chopped shallot, chopped garlic, shavings of Parmesan and two tablespoons of olive oil. I seasoned it all with pepper and salt to taste (just a pinch of salt). Then I blended everything thoroughly until smooth (see the photo below). Pesto done.

I heated a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan. I cut the hot red chilli (a fresh one, none of that powdered stuff) into 3 mm strips and fried them over a low “flame”. After about a minute I added the spaghetti to the pan with the chilli and seasoned it with dried herbes de Provence.

I sliced the sun-dried tomatoes thinly and added them to the pasta. I tossed it all together and after about 2 minutes added two generous spoonfuls of the pesto I’d made earlier. I took the pan off the “flame” and mixed everything thoroughly. Voilà, dinner’s ready. Mind you, it really is quite hot and the garlic stays with you long after you’ve eaten it 😉 Enjoy!