Seasonal recipe No 47: Borlotti bean tagliatelle

This is a perfect creamy pasta dish that uses some of the fresh basil we have in the veg boxes this week.  It comes from the first River Cafe Cook Book Easy, whose authors are the late-lamented Rose Gray and her fellow River Cafe founder Ruth Rogers. 

Serves 4

Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes

Ingredients
350g dried egg tagliatelle
100g pancetta
500g cooked borlotti beans (or tinned)
1 red onion
2 garlic cloves,
1 x 400g tin of peeled plum tomatoes, drained
3 tbs double cream
3 tbs torn basil leaves
50g Parmesan, freshly grated
extra-virgin olive oil

Method
Peel and chop the onion and the garlic.  Cut the pancetta into 1cm pieces.  Rinse the beans if tinned.

Heat 2 tbs of olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan. Add the onion and cook until soft, then add the garlic and pancetta and cook until the pancetta is translucent. This should take about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, chopping them up to make a sauce, and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Season, then stir in the borlotti beans and cream. Cook for 5-10 minutes, until the sauce is thick. Add the basil and 2 tbs of olive oil. Cook the tagliatelle in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain, retaining 3-4 tbs of the pasta water. Add the tagliatelle to the beans, adding the retained pasta water if the sauce is too thick. Toss together, drizzle with olive oil and serve with the Parmesan.

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Fresh basil in the veg boxes

The delicious smell of new season basil is wafting around the veg boxes.  We’ve got a wonderful selection of spring vegetables this week, which suggests we’re almost over the “hungry gap“.

All the box contents – except for the last of the Cornish asparagus crop – come from two of Camel CSA’s three expert growers, Jeremy Brown of St Kew Harvest and Mark Norman in Bodmin.

Small and standard boxes have: -
*new potatoes (Mark Norman)
*mixed basil (St Kew Harvest)
*radish (St Kew Harvest)
*rocket (St Kew Harvest)
*lettuce (St Kew Harvest)
asparagus (Lower Croan, Sladesbridge)

Standard boxes also have: -
*extra potatoes (Mark Norman)
*beetroot (Mark Norman)
*green onions (Mark Norman)
*green garlic (St Kew Harvest)

* = grown to organic principles

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My holiday with vegetables

Holiday nightmare or domestic dream?  Frances is back home after a visit to her parents, who are enthusiastic members of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s growing-our-own-food project…

“Who’d have thought I’d spend my first morning visiting my parents helping Mum make three lots of soup, the easiest and quickest way to make sure all the vegetables from the box got used.

“Dad incidentally was out of the way, sorry, too busy up at the farm helping out with the other volunteers.

“My favourite soup was the roast tomato and basil (see below), as the tomatoes actually tasted like tomatoes unlike the ones you get from the supermarket in Newcastle!

 ”The fun didn’t stop there, with another vegetable box arriving towards the end of my visit. This box contained a wonderfully orange pumpkin which we roasted to make a pumpkin and sage risotto with blue cheese.

“I made up the recipe, simply adding the roasted pumpkin to a basic risotto, adding chopped fresh sage leaves to the stock and cubes of blue cheese on top of the risotto at the end.

“Although the pumpkin ended up being a little bit watery (perhaps we should have stuck to making soup!) the risotto turned out to be very good energy food for dancing the night away at the barn dance in St Mabyn that evening which was a lovely, if not exhausting end to my Cornwall visit.”

Roast tomato and basil soup (adapted from the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book)

Preparation and cooking time: 40 minutes.  Serves 4

Ingredients
2 lbs fresh ripe tomatoes
1 onion
1 medium potato
1 stick of celery
1 carrot
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 litre of vegetable stock
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 bunch of basil

 Method
Halve tomatoes and place in baking tray. Sprinkle with oil and a few basil leaves. Cook in a hot oven for 30 minutes.  Chop onion, carrot, potato and celery finely and sautee gently in oil in a large pan for 10 minutes.  Add stock, salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.  When tomatoes roasted, remove skins and add to pan.  Chop stems of basil and half the leaves and add to the mix with tomato paste.  Simmer for a further 5 minutes.  Puree in a blender. Serve with a garnish of basil leaves.

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