The Veggie Sauce is definitely the freshest sauce for Pasta and Risotto that you can prepare!
I learned this through my experience in cooking classes and from my customers in private dinners.
Well, many things happened in these days: I held cooking courses with my students, I was a private Chef for a dinner and I passed the exam to become a Professional Chef … what an experience!
I’ll tell you later about my “Chef Diploma” and about the Menu I prepared to get it.
Nowadays, I’d like to pass you the recipe for Veggie Sauce, just because I ran 2 cooking classes in Tuscany, at a distance of a couple of days both with something vegetarian.
During the first cooking class, we’ll prepare fresh handmade pasta, while in the second one was the turn of a creamy risotto with seasonal vegetables. This last pleasantly enjoyed by two wonderful girls who usually do not like vegetables!
Well, this is what always happens; prepare something together stimulates appetite and increases the desire to taste the fruits of our labor.
And because the vegetables are all the rage, here is the recipe for a wonderful ragout of seasonal vegetables, the same as we prepare for our courses with great satisfaction of all.
How will you enjoy them?
Both with pasta (fresh or dried, egg or not), and with the risotto, you will have the impression to savor every aroma and flavor of this colorful springtime in Tuscany.
Veggie Sauce
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 zucchini
- 3 zucchini flowers
- 1 celery stalk
- 1 carrot
- 1 leak
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 pinch salt
- 5 spoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 glass white wine
- 4 leaves fresh basil
- 2 spoons butter (if Risotto)
Cooking Directions
- Cut the vegetables into small cubes or julienne (at will). They get so separated from the extra virgin olive oil. pumpkin flowers (to be added at the end as they’re very delicate).
- In a pan pour oil EVO up to cover the bottom. Add the leak, turn on the fire, and expect to soften.
- At this point add the vegetables, stirring with a wooden spoon.
- This procedure must be very short for two reasons:
- a) the flavor of the vegetables remains intact with a short cooking
- b) the minerals are lost if the cooking is too long.
- After about 3 minutes, add white wine, wait it evaporates and add the chopped zucchini flowers.
- After 5 minutes max, you add the salt and a little of basil ripped with your fingers and the “ragu from the garden” is ready.
- This kind of ragu is a tasteful sauce for pasta
VEGGIE RISOTTO
Directions:
Pour the white rice Carnaroli or Arborio (1/2 glass for a person) in a pan and toast it for about 3 minutes. It has to become transparent and if you move it you can hear the rice “singing”.
Soften the leak in a pan with 2 spoons of butter and 1 spoon of extra virgin oil
Then add the toasted rice
Add the white wine and let it evaporates.
Add the chopped vegetables and cook them together with the rice
Pour some vegetable broth* a few a time until cooked.
*: 1 carrot, celery, 1 onion
Add the courgette flowers at the end, together with the salt.
Both, Pasta and Risotto, will be really creamy and tasteful if you’ll add (turned off the fire) grated Parmigiano Reggiano (4 spoons) and 2 tbsp of unsalted butter. This means “mantecare il risotto”.
Let it rest 5 minutes before serving.
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