This low-fat pasta with roasted butternut and walnut pesto combines a creamy version of a pesto of walnuts, shallots, garlic and parsley and pan-cooked mushrooms in a delicious lacto-vegetarian dish that's very easy to make.
Two types of nutty
This low-fat pasta recipe—I'm using linguine here, but any longer pasta will do—is another that I developed following my gall bladder operation that meant that I could eat very little fat while my body adjusted. So, it's good for anyone on a low-fat regime and, of course, it's also lacto-vegetarian. It's based on a recipe I learned in Liguria in Italy, but adapted to be low fat.
I'm using yellow "heritage" baby cherry tomatoes in the salad here, simply because I had some that were ripe. But you can use any fresh baby plum and/or cherry tomatoes or even chopped ripe tomatoes of other varieties. Or, of course, you could opt for a different salad.
There are a number of stages to this dish, mostly because it uses a preparation method that keeps the fat i.e. oil content very low. However, it's not complicated to cook.
Cooking this dish with these quantities and ingredients brings it in at just under 6g of fat per standard portion. However, you can reduce that to under 5g per portion by not sprinkling with the parmesan (or pecorino romano) at table. I won't lie: it lacks that indulgent deep flavour compared with with the cheese, but it's still tastier than most low-fat dishes.
What isn't optional is that you need to use zero-fat quark. Fat-free yoghurts or fromage frais will separate and "clot". Quark, however, will not if you follow the cooking method below. The original Ligurian dish uses ricotta cheese in the pesto instead of Quark, so that's another option if you're not too concerned about the fat content.
The portions here are for 2 to 3 diners. Scale proportionally. NB: the images here are of a scaled down cooking portion and therefor only indicative.
Shopping list
for the low-fat pasta with roasted butternut and walnut pesto
Enough linguine per diner (approx. 90g per diner, dried)
½ a fresh butternut squash, peeled and roughly cubed
1 tbspn virgin olive oil
300g large brown mushrooms, cut into relatively thick slices
1.5 tbspns parmesan (or pecorino romano) cheese, finely grated
2 large echalion shallots, peeled and sliced
3 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled and sliced
2 tspns chopped smoked garlic (or equivalent additional fresh garlic)
1 tbspn white wine vinegar
½ a glass of white wine (or vegetable stock)
A generous clutch of flat leaf parsely
2 tspns dried oregano
Approx. 90g Quark
Approx. 2 handfuls walnut halves
Salt and pepper to taste
for the salad
Little gem lettuce, washed, torn and drained
½ a cucumber, sliced into batons
Approx. 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tspn balsamic vinegar
1 tspn soy sauce
1 tspn lemon juice
freshly cracked black pepper (and salt if desired)
a pinch of dried sweet chilli flakes
Cooking method
the low-fat pasta with roasted butternut and walnut pesto
Prepare your butternut squash and walnut pesto first. You can do this immediately before cooking, or you can do this up to a couple of days in advance and store in the fridge
Evenly spread the butternut cubes out on a non-stick baking tray. Sprinkle with oregano and roast in a hot oven at 220°C, turning about 3 times during cooking, which usually takes about 20 to 25mins. Don't be scared of a little blackening at the edges of the butternut: this gives a pleasant caramelising flavour. If you wish, you can spritz the cubes with a little of the oil-based "fry light" low-cal alternatives to oil (or baste with a little olive oil if you're not so concerned about the fat content. Once fully cooked i.e. a fork passes easily through the butternut, remove from the oven and place to one side
Place the sliced shallots and garlic In a microwave-proof dish. Add the white wine vinegar, season with a little black pepper and cover. Cook on full power (900W) for 4mins. Allow to cool fully
Add the cooled, cooked shallots and garlic to a mini chopper or food processor. Add the flat leaf parsley and chop briefly. Then add half of the Quark and chop into a rough paste. Season with salt and pepper, add the walnuts and chop into a relatively smooth pesto, adding the additional Quark as you go along. Place to one side. NB: do not place in the fridge unless you plan to cook the dish some time later. It needs to be at room temperature when you wish to do the final stages
Bring a pot of salted water to the boil to cook your pasta. You will need to cook this to be ready (al dente), hot and drained, by the time the main dish is nearly ready, which will only take about 10mins. NB: keep a little of the hot water—about half a cup—from the cooked pasta to one side
Heat the olive oil in a large pan on a medium-high heat, adding the smoked garlic while it is still heating. Almost as soon as it begins to sizzle, add the sliced mushrooms and stir in vigorously, ensuring the are coated in the relatively small amount of oil. If they begin to stick, add a dash of white wine (or vegetable stock), only a few tablespoons as a time.
When the mushrooms are about half-cooked, add the roasted butternut into the pan and stir in, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add a dash more of the white wine (or vegetable stock) and stir off, ensuring the mushrooms cook fully and the butternut is heated until piping hot, adding dashes of the wine or stock to ensure there is sufficient moisture in the pan
Add your cooked, pasta in the pan and increase the heat slightly. Add approx. 4 tbspns of the "pasta water" to the pan and mix together either by tossing the pan if you're confident with that technique or using tongs. Add the last of the white wine (but not the vegetable stock) and allow to cook off, ensuring all of your pasta is coated in the juices in the pan
Remove from the heat and immediately add the pesto, allowing it to melt purely from the heat of the ingredients. Gently stir in ensuring it is evenly distributed, coating all of the pasta
Allow to rest for a minute or so, then plate and take to table, serving with the salad and a little grated parmesan (or other) cheese if desired
the salad
Mix the lettuce leaves, tomatoes and cucumber together. Season with the black pepper and chilli flakes
In a small vessel, mix the soy, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice together. Dress at table or only shortly before. This fat free dressing is fairly salty because of the soy sauce, therefore don't season with salt until you've tasted it seasoned.
Alternatives
This is by default a lacto-vegetarian dish. It's more difficult to turn vegan, simply because the Quark-based pesto is an intrinsic part of the dish. It might work with plant-based alternatives to yoghurt or cream but I'm not familiar enough with them to say.
Carnivores. The original Ligurian dish, which uses ricotta cheese in the pesto, is also usually lacto-vegetarian. Sara, the women who taught me how to cook it, told me that in Ligurian cooking it's fairly unusual to combine meat in dishes that use walnuts as a key flavour. But, she also said that further north in Piedmont, they cook practically the same dish, to which they add cubes of speck or fatty cured hams. These were usually added to the pan right at the start of the cooking, before the garlic and mushrooms so that the pork fat flavoured the dish. Yep, I've made such versions often, and they are delicious, but most definitely crank up the overall fat content.
Pairings
I've only done this low-fat version relatively recently. This first time I did it, I was still avoiding alcohol completely and had it with mineral water. More recently, it's worked with both a perfectly acceptable supermarket Vermentino, one of the wines I remember from Liguria, those this particular one was actually from Sicily and definitely felt more "sun-drenched" than the Ligurian Vermentino wines I know. The other was a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, which also didn't scare the horses.
What I do remember about the versions that include speck or cured ham, is that they are definitely a heavier, heartier dish, better suited to the cooler northern regions than Liguria at the height of summer. They also somehow seem to demand a red wine. I remember it working very well with a barbera di Asti on one distinct occasion. I was delighted because the local liquor store had seriously underpriced this particular wine that I've never since seen in the UK but remember from a little enoteca in Asti when we did a photo shoot there. I can't remember the specifics of what worked well on the other occasions, but I suspect my default settings would have headed in the direction of chianti or Sangiovese, possibly a Nero d'Avola. More research needs to be done...
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