Pasta with Black Cabbage Pesto

The black cabbage is a vegetable rich of antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. Therefore, this weekly recipe is not only quick but also healthy.

We are aware that black cabbage is not a common vegetable, especially out of Italy, but we’ve been lucky to find it at Mercatino delle verdure (Ca’- Cucina, Rebekkavej 49 – Hellerup).

If you are looking for some fresh products, imported from Italy, go visit the Mercatino delle verdure. We are sure you’ll find something to give an Italian twist to your table!

INGREDIENTS for 4 servings:

70 – 100 gr black cabbage leaves
∼50 gr coarsely chopped nuts (pine nuts, walnuts and pistachios)
320 gr spaghetti (or any other kind of pasta)
1 clove garlic, sliced
∼20 gr extra-virgin olive oil
60 gr grated parmesan cheese

Fill a pot with water and bring to the boil. Wash the the black cabbage, and then cut off the hardest parts. Cut up the cabbage into chunks. Drop them into the boiling water and add salt. Half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of salt per quart (liter) of water will do the trick. Cook them until just wilted, a couple minutes. Then with a skimmer pull the cabbage off and let it dry in a colander.
Keep the vegetables water hot, you’ll reuse it to cook the pasta.

Crush some of the leaves in a mortar and pestle, adding more gradually. Add the nuts little at a time together with the sliced clove of garlic. Mash all the ingredients together until obtaining a smooth blending. At the end, add grated parmesan cheese and extra-virgin olive oil. Mix until obtaining a homogeneous sauce.

You can use a food processor to make pesto: pulse on and off the ingredients (cabbage, nuts and garlic) until smooth. In this way the processor blades don’t overheat the pesto. At the end add grated parmesan cheese and extra-virgin olive oil. Mix until obtaining a homogeneous sauce.

Bring again the vegetable water to the boil. Cook into it the spaghetti until al dente (follow the instruction here).

If the pesto sauce is too thick, diluite it with a spoon of cooking water.

Drain the pasta and combine it with the pesto sauce, mixing very well.

Sprinkle the spaghetti with freshly grated parmesan cheese.