Kale pesto and hazelnut pasta
- Prep: 15m
- Cook: 10m
- Serves: 2
The recipe below makes more pesto than you need (unless you like your pasta drenched in pesto, which wouldn’t be unreasonable). But it freezes well so you can whip a little pot of it out to make this quick veg-filled supper. You can use walnuts instead of hazelnuts if you prefer.
Method
- Start with the pesto. Remove the stalks from the kale and roughly chop the leaves. If you are working with especially leathery kale, you might want to blanch the leaves for 1 minute in boiling water before draining, squeezing out the excess water and continuing with the recipe.
- Put the kale leaves, garlic, 30g of nuts, 3 tbsp olive oil and Parmesan in a food processor with a good pinch of salt and whizz until smooth. Adjust the seasoning and add more olive oil to create a loose sauce consistency.
- Roughly chop the 50g of hazelnuts and toast them in a dry pan over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes until golden brown.
- Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Add a pinch of salt and the dried pasta and boil until the pasta is al dente. Remove the stalks from the kale and tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces. A minute or two before the pasta is ready, add the kale to the saucepan so it can wilt. Drain the kale and pasta, return to the saucepan and set it over a low heat.
- Stir in the pesto, the cream cheese and most of the hazelnuts and heat through, mixing gently to combine. Check the seasoning. Divide between two bowls and top with parmesan and the remaining hazelnuts.
Ingredients
All to be sourced organic where possible
- For the pesto:
- 200g kale
- 1 large garlic clove, crushed
- 30g hazelnuts
- Up to 100ml olive oil
- 30g Parmesan, grated
- For the pasta:
- 50g hazelnuts
- 150g dried pasta, such as fusilli or gemelli
- 150g kale
- 2 tbsp full-fat cream cheese
- Parmesan, grated, to serve
