Tagliatelle with leeks and parmesan

This is another Nigel Slater inspired recipe. Very, very easy and you get ribbons of silky pasta merging beautifully with soft, salty leeks and finished with parmesan. The wafting aromas while the leeks are slowly braising is amazing

Big recommendation – if you don’t love leeks, don’t cook this dish!!

Totally vegetarian and makes a wonderful winter’s dinner especially if you don’t have much time

Ingredients

4 large leeks, cut in half lengthways and then in half again. Mainly use the white but a bit of green is fine. Rinse them thoroughly under the cold tap

100 gms of butter – yes it sounds a lot but the leeks and then pasta will soak it up

15 sprigs of thyme (approx.) – remove the leaves from the sprigs and give quick chop

250 gms of tagliatelle – generally half a packet (you can use pappardelle if you can’t buy tagliatelle)

100 gms or more of shaved parmesan

Cooking instructions

1. Melt the butter in a large non-stick frypan and add leeks – level them out as much as you can. Cook on low/medium heat
2. Add the thyme leaves and place lid over the pan.
3. Cook gently for approx. 10 mins until the leeks are tender but not “burning”
4. Remove lid after the 10 mins and gently cook for another 5, keeping a good eye on the leeks and gently turning as required
5. Halfway through the cook, bring a pot to the boil and drop in the pasta and cook until al dente – follow the instructions on the packet but should be around 9-10 mins
6. Remove pasta, drain lightly and if you like, cut the pasta roughly into half
7. Toss the pasta with the buttery leeks and scatter over the parmesan
8. If you like parmesan, have some more on the table as well

All done – if you prefer the sweet, nutty flavour of gruyere, you can certainly use it instead of parmesan (gruyere is in the original recipe)

Serves 4