Pizzoccheri

The last time we had a glut of cabbage I was struggling to think of interesting things to do with it. I posted on Twitter for help and within minutes had lots of helpful suggestions, including Pizzoccheri from Carl Legge.

You can read his blog post, with recipe, photos, & method here:

http://www.carllegge.com/2011/10/pizzoccheri/

Here are the things I’d add to Carl’s post:

  • As this was the first time I’d made pasta I had no idea how much water I might need to make the dough. Gingerly I added tablespoons at a time, coming to a total of 23! I guess if each tablespoon is 15 ml then you need about 345ml for the flour quantities from Carl’s recipe.
  • I don’t have a pasta machine, so I used a rolling pin. I think possibly my pasta pieces were thicker than Carl’s recipe, but that didn’t seem to be a problem in the final dish! For the record, "0.5-1cm wide and about 4cm long" is smaller than your little finger.
  • You need a really big saucepan for all these ingredients, with enough room for the pasta pieces to move around in.
  • I couldn’t find buckwheat pasta anywhere in Leicester. Buckwheat flour proved equally tricky but I finally tracked it down in Green & Pleasant on the Queen’s Road. It’s not cheap though - nearly £3 for 500g.

Ingredients

The veg I used came from the harvest box on 3rd March 2012. The final quantities I used (washed/prepped) are:

282g potatoes

227g white onion

243g carrots

189g red cabbage

136g green cabbage

3 cloves garlic

Plus the pasta, cheeses, & seasoning detailed in Carl’s recipe.

This quantity makes 6 generous portions.

Directions

  1. See here: http://www.carllegge.com/2011/10/pizzoccheri/

This recipe tastes even better made with vegetables from Community Harvest Whetstone :)

Pizzoccheri in bowl