When I was in the Cilento peninsula, south of Paestum, in late September years ago, I saw some long yellowish marrows with a pale green pulp, a type of vegetable that I could not remember having seen before. It was a zucca, I was told, with which the locals made a superb sauce for pasta. This variety of pumpkin is rather watery in consistency, yet full of the concentrated flavour given by the hot sun of southern Italy. Here in England I find that the common or garden orange pumpkin lacks any depth of flavour. So I use winter squashes, of which I find butternut and onion are my favourites. With these squashes I also make gnocchi or ravioli mantovani. These rich ravioli also contain amaretti, mostarda di Cremona and grappa – a delicious legacy from the kitchens of the Gonzagas.
Serves 4
tagliatelle made with 3 free-range eggs, 300 g (10 oz) Italian 00 flour or 250 g (9 oz) dried egg tagliatelle
120 g (4 oz) shallots or onion
60g (2 oz) unsalted butter
pinch of sea salt
800 g (1 3/4 lb) butternut squash
good pinch of grated nutmeg
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
200 ml (7 fl oz) double cream
4 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan
freshly ground black pepper
extra Parmesan for serving
First make the tagliatelle, as instructed here. Roll out the dough to the last but one notch of the hand-cranked machine, or as thin as you can if you are doing it by hand.
Peel and chop the shallots or onion. They should be chopped really finely, so that they become like a granular purée. A food processor is ideal for this job.
Put the butter and the shallot or onion in a heavy pan and heat very slowly until the butter has melted. Sprinkle with a little salt. This will make the shallot or onion release its moisture and thus cook without browning. Cover the mixture with a piece of buttered paper (I use the butter’s wrapping paper) and put a lid on top. Cook over a very low heat for about half an hour, stirring frequently, until the shallot or onion is very soft.
Meanwhile cut the squash into chunks, discard the seeds and the cottony pulp and peel it. Cut it into short matchsticks.
Add the squash to the shallot or onion, sprinkle with the nutmeg and cover the pan. Cook very gently for 40 minutes or so, until the pumpkin has become a purée. Stir in the parsley, the cream, the cheese and the black pepper, check the salt and then draw off the heat.
Cook the pasta as usual in plenty of salted water, remembering that if it is home-made it will take no longer than 2 minutes to cook.
Drain, reserving about a cupful of the pasta water. Transfer the pasta immediately to the pan with the sauce, add a couple of tablespoons or more of the reserved water and heat for 1 minute, lifting it out of the pan to stir so that the sauce does not become too thick. Serve at once with the rest of the Parmesan in a bowl.
preparation
When I am doing a pasta dish, such as this one, that calls for a quick frying in the pan in which the sauce has been cooked, I serve it straight from the pan. Ideally the sauce should be made in an earthenware pot of the kind you can put directly on the heat, as should all slow-cooking dishes when browning is not required.