Pasta with Vegetable Ragout and Celery
Ingredients
2 servings
For the ragout
- Zucchini 1
- Sweet pepper 1
- Onion 1
- Carrot 1
- Ripe tomato 1-2
- Celery stalks 2–3 stalks
- Garlic 2-3 cloves
- Olive oil 1-2 tbsp
- Mediterranean herbs 0.5 tsp
- Salt, ground black pepper to taste
- Water 0.5 cup (if there is not enough moisture) (100 ml)
- Hot pepper 1 pod (optional)
- Tomato juice a scant cup (optional) (200 ml)
For the pasta
- Short pasta 200 g
- Water for boiling the pasta 2 l
- Salt for boiling the pasta 14 g (7 g per 1 l of water)
For serving
- Parmesan to taste
- Basil sprig
Step-by-step recipe
Preparing the vegetables
Pasta with vegetable ragout is easy to make, although it needs some time for cooking. Buy “dark” zucchini, which are firmer and keep the shape of the pieces when stewed. Add juicy vegetables such as sweet pepper, celery and carrot. In season I advise using the pulp of ripe tomatoes. It is enough to peel off the outer skin, and the seeds can stay. If you like, feel free to add other available vegetables that stew well to the ragout.
Prepare the vegetables: wash and peel everything. If you like, you can leave the zucchini unpeeled when the fruits are very young.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and remove the skin, then chop the flesh (with or without seeds) with a knife. Chop the garlic very finely. Cut the other vegetables into cubes, as for Olivier salad, and set them out in separate bowls.
Ragout
Fry the onion and carrot until soft: heat 1–2 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the vegetables in it.
Add the sweet pepper and celery and fry until soft. By the way, you can make the vegetable ragout spicy by adding a finely chopped hot pepper pod at this stage.
Add the zucchini and keep frying over medium heat until the pieces are soft and start to lose moisture.
Add the tomato and spices to the ragout. The best option is the pulp of ripe tomatoes, or canned pulp. It is better not to use tomato paste, as it has a somewhat “harsh” taste. As a last resort, you can pour in a scant cup of good-quality tomato juice (200 ml). You can add the juice if the tomatoes are not the ripest. Salt the vegetables to taste and season with ground black pepper. Add 0.5 tsp of a dry Mediterranean herb mix and the garlic.
Stew the ragout under a lid. If there is little moisture in the pan, add 0.5 cup of water (100 ml). Bring to a boil right away, cover and stew over low heat for about 30 mins. You can add more salt and spices to taste.
Pasta
Use short pasta with a “hollow”. The ragout will not be very thick, and tubular pasta holds it perfectly.
While the ragout is stewing, cook the pasta: over high heat bring 2 l of water with 14 g of salt (7 g per 1 l) to a boil, add the pasta and cook for as long as the package says. Drain in a colander.
Mix the pasta with the ragout. When the ragout is ready, you can raise the heat for a while and take off the lid so the excess moisture evaporates. Mix the pasta and the vegetable ragout, then keep the finished dish under a lid for a few more minutes so the pasta soaks up the sauce and aroma.
Serving
Divide the pasta among plates, sprinkle with grated Parmesan and garnish with a sprig of basil. The dish is served hot, right away, so do not reheat it.
If you are not set on making a vegetarian dish, you can easily add chicken meat or ground meat to the ingredients. Among vegetables you can add eggplant, fennel, parsnip roots and so on.
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Calories and macros
630 kcal
Serving ≈ 550 g
- Protein22 g15% of kcal
- Fat16 g24% of kcal
- Carbs92 g62% of kcal
100 g114 kcalProtein 4 gFat 2.9 gCarbs 16.8 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.