A lot of ideas are passed on from cook to cook, and this dish is no exception. I met Joy in January at Pastaio, a central London pasta restaurant. While we were chatting, she told me about a magical sauce that her vegan boyfriend makes weekly in a blender and that they love eating over pasta. After hearing about it, I became filled with single-minded zeal to try making something similar, and here are the results. The silken tofu adds creaminess, the miso and nutritional yeast add big flavour and umami, and the herbs and lemon provide fresh zing. If you like it, please pass it on.
Joy’s creamy green pasta
You’ll need a blender for this. Nutritional yeast and silken tofu can be easily found in supermarkets nationwide these days. (Although this isn’t Joy’s recipe, I wanted to credit her for the idea, hence the name.)
Prep 5 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 4
240g baby spinach, washed
40g basil leaves and tender stems, chopped
15g flat-leaf parsley leaves and tender stalks, chopped
300g packet silken tofu, drained
20g nutritional yeast
1 tsp white miso
1 lemon, zest finely grated, and juiced, to get 1½ tbsp
Fine sea salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
320g rigatoni
50g pitted kalamata olives, finely chopped
Put a wide frying or saute pan for which you have a lid on a medium heat and, once it’s hot, add the washed spinach and pop on the lid. Leave for three minutes, stirring every now and then, until wilted, then drain and squeeze out the excess water from the leaves. Keep the pan to one side for later.
Put the spinach in a blender with the basil, parsley, silken tofu, nutritional yeast, miso, lemon juice, a teaspoon and a quarter of salt and four tablespoons of oil, then blitz smooth.
Bring two litres of water to a boil in a large saucepan, add two teaspoons of salt and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. While the pasta is cooking, put the chopped olives in a small bowl with four tablespoons of olive oil and the lemon zest, then stir to combine.
Near the end of the cooking time, scoop out a large mugful of the starchy cooking water, then drain the pasta and drizzle with a little oil.
Put the pasta back in the empty pan on a medium heat, add the green sauce and about 100ml of the pasta cooking water, and cook, stirring, for three minutes. Take off the heat, distribute between four shallow bowls, spoon a quarter of the kalamata oil over each one and serve.
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