Tenerumi and Spaghetti - Pasta con Cucuzza

Tenerumi and Spaghetti - Pasta con Cucuzza

Because we grow Marrows at Sawrey, and because I have not grown a marrow big enough to grace the 'heaviest marrow' category I look for unusual squash to grow, and for the last few years I have grown Sicilian Serpents or 'Cucuzza' quite successfully in the green house, and they have been successful at the 'unusual veg' category too. The first seeds we bought came from Sicily. 

I think that there is no point in growing things like tomatoes in your greenhouse, they're as cheap as you like in the Co-Op, and you'll be forced to make 'Green Tom Chutney' with the failures. I only grow the unusual, exceptionally tasty, expensive to buy or hard to get vegetables.

If you grow Sicilian Squash you'll also have quite a few bowls of a lovely soup/stew during the summer - a lovely Teneurmi Minestrone, then you can make a pasta dish with the large serpent 'Cucuzza' later. And you too can win at your local horticultural show...

There's a lot to this simple recipe from Sicily though, and for two reasons it's important. One : that many of the recipes in Italian cook books never include this manner of cooking greens. Two: the way the vegetables are combined at the end is Italian 'poor cuisine'.

Ingredients

Tenerumi - Small leaves about the size of your hand, newish storks, squash if there's lots. Not the tendrils, not the big leaves.

Tomatoes
2 cloves of Garlic
Chilli

Spaghetti

Pecorino

Wash over the leaves and stalks and chop into 5 cm pieces, drop into a pan of salted boiling water for three minutes. Drain over  a colander. Put the spaghetti in the boiling water - cook until al dente.

In a pan fry the garlic in some oil and add the chilli, add the Tenermi, add three ripe chopped tomatoes, keep moving the mixture for a few minutes until it smells great.

Drain the spaghetti reserving a cup of the liquid. Put the pasta into a bowl, pour over a little olive oil, add basil leaves, and grated pecorino and mix it up. Add the Tenerumi mixture and some liquid and serve.

Simple and delicious.