The recipe
Ingredients
- 180 g dried tagliatelle
- 300 g prepared Hokkaido pumpkin
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 30 g butter
- 6 sage leaves
- 20 g Parmesan, finely grated
- 1 tsp lemon juice, salt and pepper
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200°C conventional heat. Cut the washed, deseeded pumpkin into roughly 1.5 cm cubes and weigh out 300 g.
- Toss with the olive oil and a little salt. Roast on a suitable tray for about 20 to 25 minutes, turning after 15 minutes. Use only once fork-tender.
- Time the tagliatelle to finish with the pumpkin, cooking al dente in salted water according to the packet. Reserve a cup of cooking water. Wash and completely dry the sage.
- Melt the butter in a wide pan over medium-low heat. Fry the sage for about 1 to 2 minutes until the leaves firm up. Remove the leaves and take the pan off the heat before the butter darkens.
- Add the hot pasta and pumpkin to the warm sage butter. Add an initial 3 tbsp of cooking water and toss gently, using more water if needed.
- Off the heat, incorporate the Parmesan. Season with the lemon juice, pepper and salt if needed, divide between two plates and finish with the sage leaves.
Roast small pumpkin pieces in good time
The 300 grams of pumpkin means prepared Hokkaido squash without seeds or the fibrous centre. Wash the skin thoroughly; it can stay on the small Hokkaido pieces. Cut cubes roughly one and a half centimetres across. Larger pieces take longer and distribute less easily among the pasta ribbons. Toss them with the oil and a little salt before spreading them in a single layer on a suitable baking tray.
At 200°C in a conventional oven, roughly 20 to 25 minutes is a starting point. Turn the pieces after about 15 minutes and check with a fork. They should be tender inside, with colour on some edges. If still firm, they need more time, so start the pasta later accordingly. A tender centre matters more than very dark roasting marks. These quantities and the straightforward combination are our own variation of pumpkin pasta with sage butter.
Flavour the butter and toss the pasta
Wash the sage leaves and dry them very thoroughly before adding them to warm butter. Heat the butter over medium-low heat and move the leaves around in it. After roughly one to two minutes, they may become firmer and lightly coloured. Remove them at that point. The butter can smell nutty and become lightly golden, but should not turn black or smell bitter. If it browns quickly, immediately move the pan away from the hot hob.
Cook the dried tagliatelle according to their packet timing while the pumpkin finishes roasting. Add the pasta and cooked pumpkin to the sage butter and gently loosen everything with an initial three tablespoons of pasta water. Vigorous stirring would break up the tender pumpkin. Some can help bind the sauce, but leave a number of recognisable cubes. Incorporate the Parmesan off the heat and balance the flavour with a teaspoon of lemon juice. Distribute the sage leaves over the plated pasta at the end.