Pasta cream, speck, courgette and saffron

"This colourful, flavoursome, but at the same time delicate pasta dish can sound pretty elaborated, although it is actually extremely easy to make!" 

 

 Ingredients

• 500g short pasta (i.e. Penne or Fusilli) 
• 1 shallot
• 1 courgette
• 100/200g of smoked ham (Speck or Black forest ham)
• 15g butter
• 300ml single cream
• saffron (in powder or dried stems)
• 1/4 glass of white wine
• rock/coarse salt (for the water)
• salt and pepper
• grated Parmesan (optional)

Tools

• 26/28cm saucepan
• 5 litres pot
• good kitchen knife and chopping board
• colander
• wooden spoon
• multi-size grater 

Preparation

• Fill 3/4 of the pot with water and put on medium/high heat  
• Put the butter in the saucepan
• Chop the shallot finely
• Chop the ham in small stripes/squares
• Wash the courgette, chop top and bottom and grate it all on the half centimeter sized holes side of the grater

Cooking

• Put the pan with the butter on medium/high heat and add the chopped shallot into it
• When the shallot has cooked until soft, add the ham 
• Stir well to prevent the shallot from burning whilst keeping an eye on the ham
• When the ham looks cooked (after 3/5 min), pour in the white wine, increase the heat and make reduce
• Once reduced, add the courgette, reduce back to medium heat and stir occasionally as they cook, for about 5/7 min
• When the courgette looks cooked, add the cream, the saffron, salt and pepper, stir well and reduce the heat - let it cook for 10 min whilst stirring occasionally to gently thicken the cream 
• When the water boils, add 3/5 teaspoons of coarse salt
• When the water boils again, add the pasta and cook according to the packaging
• When the pasta is ready, drain it using the colander and add it to the sauce in the pan whilst mixing well

Serving

• Add some freshly ground pepper on each plate and/or grated Parmesan

Tips

Well... this pasta is really very easy to make. The only thing i can say is to avoid cooking the sauce for too long/too high heat after adding the cream, otherwise it will get dry and lumpy. The cream needs to thicken gently whilst bringing all the flavours together. I usually don't put any salt in the sauce as the speck is quite salty anyway. If you feel it needs a bit of salt when you have already served it, just add Parmesan on top instead!