Today I bring you another 15min meal, which is easy to put together. I used one of my favourite ingredients that I recently discovered, pecorino cheese rind. I remember reading a while ago to keep Parmesan rind for sauce and soup. It’s meant to give great depth of umami flavour.
I try to stick to sheep and goats cheeses since I have an intolerance to cows milk and cheese. So my cheese of choice is always pecorino, which is a hard Roman sheeps cheese. I buy the imported cheese from Costco, rather than then Australian blends that usually have cows milk in them. I have been saving my pecorino rinds for a while and adding cubes of them to red pasta sauces. I recently found they are delicious to add to fresh tomato or olive oil to coat the pasta. They melt a little and have a chewy texture and nice cheesy taste.
For this dish, I also used Chickpea fusilli pasta, which has extra protein and fibre, then regular pasta and gluten-free. Semolina fusilli pasta would also work fine, which is my usual go-to. I had organic cherry tomatoes, which were so full of flavour. Cherry tomatoes are usually sweeter and delicious then regular tomatoes, but you could always use diced tomatoes instead. For the vegetables I just used some zucchini and silverbeet, which complement the pasta. You could use your favourite veggie combination to add to this dish or no veggies at all if you prefer.
Chickpea pasta with Cherry tomatoes and Pecorino rind
(vegetarian, gluten free, nut free)
Ingredients:
200g Chickpea Fusilli Pasta (I used San Remo Pulse Pasta)
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 zucchini, diced
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, quartered
1-2 garlic cloves (optional)
5x5cm piece pecorino rind, cubed
3-4 silverbeet leaves, spines removed and sliced
Sea salt & Black Pepper to taste
Method:
- First, boil the pasta water and cook according to packet instructions. To cut down time boil the water in the kettle first. Add sea salt to the water. Drain when ready.
- Heat olive oil in a frying pan and saute the zucchini, cherry tomatoes, garlic Cook for a few minutes or until they start to soften. Add 1/2 a ladle of pasta water to make a little juicy.
- Add the pecorino rind and cook another couple of minutes.
- Add silverbeet leaves and allow to wilt, before turning off the heat. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
- Add pasta to the hot pan and coat with ingredients. Serve immediately.
*Serves 2
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