Recipe & photography by Joe Woodhouse.
I love this kind of way of eating pasta. Essentially a minestrone of sorts. Use the recipe as a template and swap in or out ingredients throughout the seasons or to your tastes. Using oyster mushrooms works a treat. As does any leafy greens. Brussels tops or chard are great. Equally you don’t have to substitute. In this case more is more. Just up the stock and tinned tomato amount if adding lots more. Also a splash (small glass worth) of cider or white wine in with the stock doesn’t go a miss.
Serves 4
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil,
1 carrot, top removed and diced
1 red onions, peeled and roughly diced
1 leek, trimmed, cleaned, white part finely sliced, greens shredded
250g button mushrooms, sliced
200g cavolo nero or kale, leaves stripped from stalks, stalks finely sliced
500ml vegetable stock
1 x 350g jar or 400g can chickpeas
1 x 400g plum tomatoes
300g rigatoni
sea salt flakes and black pepper
Grated cheese to serve
Recipe
- Heat the oil in a good-sized pan. Add the carrots and onion with a good pinch of salt and cook for 6–8 minutes until beginning to soften. Add the leeks, cavolo stalks and mushrooms. Stir well to incorporate and cook for a further 3–5 minutes. Add the stock, chickpeas with juice and tomatoes. Crush up the tomatoes a little and bring to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile par cook your pasta in well salted water. 3-4 minutes should do. Reserve some pasta water. Drain and add to the veg broth. Along with the cavolo leaves torn a little. Stir to wilt the leaves. Add pasta water as needed to loosen the mix.
- Check the seasoning, add black pepper at this stage. Serve with grated cheese.
