Spaghetti with an agretti, courgette and radish sauce
Creative vegetables in a tasty starter.
Agretti is a shore vegetable found in Italy. It’ll be difficult to find in the UK, but samphire would be good replacement for this recipe.
A Chef Roberto Bassi recipe for SU-EATABLE Life.
Serves four
- Spaghetti – 320 g
- Courgette – 100 g
- Spinach – 100 g
- Agretti (or Samphire) – 80 g
- Lemon – 1
- Extra virgin olive oil – 4 tbsp
- Garlic – 2 cloves
- Radish to taste
- Salt to taste
- White pepper to taste
Nutritional information
Per serving: 468 Kcal
Environmental Impact
Per serving:
174 grams CO2 equivalence - carbon footprint
305 litres - water footprint
This recipe’s environmental sustainability level is: Very high.
To remain environmentally sustainable at each meal, our advice is to keep within 1000 grams of CO2 equivalence (carbon footprint) and 1000 litres of virtual water (water footprint). Remember that animal proteins (meat, cheese, fish and eggs) have a greater impact than grains, beans, pulses and vegetables. Vegetable sides generally have a low environmental impact, equivalent to around 100 grams of CO2, including dressing.
Method
Peel the garlic and put it in the extra virgin olive oil to flavor.
Carefully clean the agretti, rinsing them in running water and removing the roots and any darker strands. If using samphire, make sure you’ve cleaned them and they’re trimmed.
Wash the spinach and courgette and julienne the courgette.
Blanch the agretti (or samphire), courgette and spinach, plunging them separately into boiling salted water for a few seconds. Make sure they remain crunchy.
Then cool them in water and ice cubes.
Cook the spaghetti in the vegetable cooking water, drain them and leave to cool.
Mix the vegetables into the spaghetti, adding a few slices of very finely sliced radish, the garlic-flavored extra virgin olive oil, the grated lemon zest and the lemon juice.
If necessary, add salt to taste and a sprinkle of white pepper.
The Chef’s Advice
Cooling the blanched vegetables in water and ice is a way of retaining their color.
Nutritional Advice
This dish combines the energy from the carbohydrates with the antioxidants in the courgette and radishes. The lemon juice adds vitamins and gives the dish a fresh, tasty flavor.
Environmental Advice
Their low environmental impact means that vegetables can be combined in many different recipes to obtain creative, tasty and sustainable dishes. This is not true of animal proteins like meat, cheese, eggs and fish, which are best eaten alone or combined with vegetables only.
Drink lots of tap water and don’t waste it.
Water used to cook vegetables in contains many nutrients which make it special both as a base for other recipes (as well as for cooking pasta you can use it to make soups and broths). An alternative use is watering flowers and plants on your balcony or garden.
