PASTA WITH FRIED COURGETTES

(Pasta con Zucchini Fritti)

Serves 6

675 g/1½ lb courgettes

Salt

5 tablespoons olive oil or more

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons minced parsley leaves

Freshly ground black pepper

675 g/1½ lb penne rigate, or pennette

125 g/4 oz salted ricotta or parmesan, grated

Wash the courgettes, cut off 12 mm/½ inch from each end, and slice very thin. Sprinkle with a little salt and sautée in 5 tablespoons olive oil in a heavy frying pan, covered, until tender. Stir frequently but with care, so as to avoid breaking the slices. When the courgettes are tender and just beginning to colour, add the minced garlic, parsley, and some pepper. Mix well, and cook for 1 minute longer.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. Reserve 125 ml/4 fl oz of the cooking water, then drain the pasta. Toss with the courgettes; if it seems too dry add a little of the reserved liquid and a few tablespoons of olive oil. Pass the cheese on the side.

Cauliflower makes a delicious if surprising companion to pasta. Sicilian cauliflowers, a treat to the eye as well as to the palate, are usually a bright pea green in colour, although white ones and even dark purple ones do exist. Twenty years ago, when I first used to drive along the road that leads down from the mountains behind Monreale into Palermo, I would pass in the early morning a string of gaily painted Sicilian carts stacked high with bright green cauliflowers, each with its flower facing outward and carefully arranged in a pyramid stable enough to survive the lurching of the high-wheeled carts as they trundled down the curving mountain road, bells jingling, pompoms bobbing, and mirrors flashing on the donkeys’ harness. Today the carts have been replaced by Vespa pickups, and although the carters often honour tradition and have their Vespas expensively painted to look like the old carts, and although the pyramids of vegetables are still constructed with care, the effect is hardly the same.

All by itself, cauliflower can be fried in batter, in pieces or even whole, or cooked “all in the pot.”