I've got a pasta feast with two beautiful salads
that you're gonna learn how to do in way under half an hour.
Orecchiette with purple sprouting broccoli and normal broccoli.
Then we got two salads,
the first one is a beautiful courgette salad with chilli and mint.
Then we got one of the good
old classics, prosciutto and melon, a brilliant combination.
First things first, I'm gonna do the pasta and the pasta sauce.
I wanna grate some parmesan.
So what I'm gonna do is take that rind off there...
I'm gonna show you what to do with that in a minute.
I've got this parmesan here, I've got my food processor
and a fine grater here, and I'm just gonna...
literally,
it takes 5 seconds.
And look how lovely that is.
I'm gonna change the blade from the grater
to the sort of general processor blade
and I'm gonna use that to make the sauce.
Now the sauce here is made out of this classic broccoli.
Then we've got the sprouting broccoli here, beautiful.
I'm just literally gonna take the bare ends off of the purple sprouting broccoli,
these are like the woodier ends, and these are quite soft and tender.
So I'm gonna put these to one side.
And then
with this sort of classic broccoli all I'm gonna do
is use the tip of my knife and just take
the little sort of flowers off like that.
You know, most people would throw that away.
I'm gonna create incredible flavour with this.
These will go in a colander in the pasta water at the last minute.
These lovely green ones here, these will go in at the last minute as well.
And then I'm just gonna put the broccoli stalks in here.
We want that heat there, so I'm gonna crumble up one or two dry
chillies into here, a couple of cloves of garlic.
I'm gonna use my little garlic crusher.
Nice pinch of salt and pepper
just for some basic seasoning and then anchovies.
I'm gonna pour the oil from the tin in,
with about 4, 5 anchovy fillets.
I'm gonna waz it up.
Let's get my boiling water, turn on the gas stove.
We've got the base of the sauce done here.
Get that on full whack.
Olive oil in a pan and just put that lovely mix.
What I wanna do with that sauce now is put some water in it
so I'm just gonna put a splash in there, literally a wine glass.
So let me explain what's happening in that pan.
For the next 3 to 4 minutes
I don't have to worry about it because the water's in here,
it's gonna soften up, it will be cooked, and then it will start frying again.
And then we'll finish the pasta.
So another thing, that rind, y'know in Italy they don't throw this away.
It's not particularly edible, but it is salty, and it is a wonderful
quality piece of cheese.
So they just plop it in the sauce like that and it basically seasons
the dish.
And then I want to use 4 or 5 sprigs of that lovely thyme.
So let's get the pasta in, this pasta takes about 12 to 14 minutes to cook.
So everything's working there, now I can get on with the salad.
Get yourself
a nice platter.
I'm gonna get about 4 sprigs of mint here, just take the leaves off,
and then what I'm gonna do is sort of just gather it up
and then just slice it up.
So once I've gone through it like that
I'm gonna just sort of, straight in the plate, okay.
And mint, one of its very true best friends is chilli.
I'm just gonna remove the stalk like that, split it in half, run
the knife down the length. Don't rush.
You can use the tip of your knife just to scrape
the seeds out.
Just finely chop the chilli, just like you did the mint.
I'm just gonna add this chilli.
So we're gonna season it, a little salt and pepper, and also a little lemon zest.
Get one of these fine graters or a little fine box grater,
get yourself a washed lemon and then just zest.
And the smell is incredible.
Some good olive oil.
I've got my lemon juice here.
That should be lovely.
Okay.
So that's that.
I want to show you a couple of things
just to kind of get you going a bit.
Courgettes.
We've got yellow courgette here, I've got the traditional courgette
as you probably well know them, and these little baby ones.
These little beautiful baby courgettes.
If you eat them they got a crunch to them, they're an absolute pleasure,
you know, to eat with.
If you put a little with some of that dressing it's amazing.
So I'm gonna use
our lovely little speed peeler here
and I'm gonna just shave
baby courgettes into our
dressing like that.
Then we've got the yellow ones.
These are much easier to grate.
You get these beautiful ribbons.
This is our traditional courgette here.
Again, you can really speedily go through this.
So just rattle through that.
And then basically this salad is pretty much there.
Look at these beautiful ribbons here.
I won't dress those yet.
What I've got here is some
bocconcini.
They're beautiful little things.
They're so soft and silky.
So look, I've got the beautiful crunchy zucchini salad, the dressing
and the bocconcini.
I'm gonna finish it at the last minute so the dressing is as best as it can be.
The pasta is just over half-cooked, and then I'm gonna put
these sprouting broccoli and the regular broccoli into the water.
So, lid back on.
Now I want to make a refreshing prosciutto, melon and basil salad.
Get yourself some melons first.
I've got me galia here and me cantaloupe here.
I'm just going to cut it in half to
show you the different colours that you get, okay?
So you've got that lovely kind of rosy orange colour there and the fresh green.
There's no right or wrong.
Get a spoon.
That's going to be the best friend in this little salad.
Get the seeds out first just by twiddling
you know, and pushing out the seeds.
Get yourself a nice platter that you're proud to serve on.
Get your spoon and just stuff it into that melon just like that, and pull out
these little delicate pieces of melon, and you'll get about 5 or 6 out of each
half.
So there you go.
And then the other one, that's why I like the different colours as well.
You don't have to do this but, you know, it's nice to make it beautiful.
You don't have to scrape out every last bit of the melon because what you can do
is just squeeze it like that.
Okay, so to make this beautiful, the prosciutto when you lay it down,
just sort of don't kind of try and organise it, just let almost gravity,
you know, the least work you can do the better.
Just pull it around so you can see everything nicely,
and then I'm going to dress it.
And that's what's going to give it the edge.
So to dress it, what I want to do
is get a pestle and mortar and it takes literally seconds.
Just pick off 12 little basil leaves just like that
with a nice pinch of salt to make it abrasive.
Pound it up to a mush.
And then I'm just going to in there, I'm going to add a little olive oil.
It's hard to see
the incredible colours at the moment, but you'll see them in a minute.
And just a little bit of that lemon juice
from earlier.
And then I'm just going to put that over this beautiful
salad, over some of the bits of prosciutto here as well.
And that is what's going to take it
to another dimension, that tiny little bit of effort
is going to make that classic old salad absolutely be stomping.
I purposefully pick these smaller basil leaves and then from a height,
just sort of position and click them around.
And then a little kind of scrappy drizzle of olive oil on top.
And then
just that little bit of balsamic vinegar just makes it work.
That is a beautiful thing.
I love it. So I'm gonna put that on the table now.
So the first thing done.
Let's just get a mug or a jug or something
and just nick yourself a load of that starchy, hot cooking water.
We're going to turn the gas off.
Let's get our pasta. Let's drain it.
If you look in this pan right now, it looks ugly, okay?
I'm going to put in some cooking water and immediately
it will change colour and go more creamy looking.
So I can turn the heat off now.
We can go in with this pasta.
We go in with some cooking water
and a nice handful
of that parmesan that you can just break up in your hand.
And just mix it up.
But basically that's the 30 minute meal done.
If it is dry add more water, get yourself a nice big platter.
When you do pasta, it's not a fluke.
It might be humble and cheap,
but you've got to have it silky and smooth and seasoned.
And if you get those things happening, the flavours will pop.
When you do grate your parmesan over, it will be absolutely beautiful.
Tiny bit of pepper, a little bit of olive oil.
Also if you want to put some lovely flowers in, y'know thyme
and stuff on there just to remind people what the flavours are, you can.
That can
go to the table.
This salad,
now all you've got to do now it's been sitting there waiting to be done,
just use your fairy fingers and just sort of twinkle your fingers
and make it scruffy on purpose, give your food attitude,
and then you've got these lovely balls of mozzarella.
And of course, there's nothing stopping you taking a few mint leaves
to dress it up.
And there you go, two fragrant salads, a
beautiful mum and pops pasta, all in under half an hour.
Brilliant.