This dish is a cheerful accident. I first made the sauce to accompany roast potatoes, with muhammara in thoughts (a scrumptious Center Japanese dip of roast purple pepper, walnuts and pomegranate molasses). However I had no walnuts, so used pistachios as a substitute. The result’s addictive and it has since develop into a go-to; it really works simply as effectively tossed by means of pasta because it does with grilled prawns or roast potatoes. You could possibly use crumbled feta as a substitute of ricotta to prime the pasta, however I like that the ricotta doesn’t compete with the flavour of the sauce.
Roast purple pepper orecchiette with pistachios and ricotta
Prep 15 min
Prepare dinner 30 min
Serves 2
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
2 massive purple peppers, pith and seeds discarded, flesh roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely grated
2 tbsp olive oil
Flaky sea salt and black pepper
200g orechiette, or one other sturdy pasta form
50g pistachios, toasted if you want
2 generously heaped tbsp ricotta
Warmth the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/fuel 6. Tip the tomatoes, peppers, garlic, oil and a teaspoon of salt right into a roasting tin massive sufficient to carry every part in a single layer, toss to coat, then roast or 25 minutes.
When there are quarter-hour left of roasting time, deliver a big pan of salted water to a boil and prepare dinner the orechiette in response to the packet directions or to your most well-liked degree of al dente. Reserve half a mug of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta and return it to the empty pan.
As soon as the peppers and tomatoes are performed, blitz half of them with 30g of the pistachios in a high-speed blender or meals processor, till damaged down right into a smoothish sauce. Stir the sauce by means of the pasta, style and season with salt as wanted; if the sauce appears too thick, add a tablespoon or so of the reserved pasta water to loosen it (mine didn’t want any pasta water, however it is going to rely on how effectively roasted the peppers and tomatoes are).
Roughly chop the remaining pistachios. Spoon the pasta into warmed bowls, prime every portion with a tablespoon of ricotta and the remaining unblitzed roasted peppers, tomatoes and chopped pistachios, add a superb grind of black pepper and serve scorching.
