Hi my name is Ritu and welcome to my channel
Indulgent Fuel.
I posted a picture on Instagram of zucchini
noodles and so many of you have requested
that so I had to bump it up the queue and
that's what we're making today.
We're going to be making a zucchini pasta
with a hazelnut and basil pesto.
So healthy, it's gluten-free, it's low-carb,
low-calorie, and feels so rich and delicious
that you will not even miss the real pasta.
You'll need two zucchinis to spiralize, and
obviously, a spiralizer.
Make sure you get a zucchini that is a little
thicker, because you lose some of the core
when you spiralize, so you're left with enough
zucchini to make your pasta.
We're going to cut off the ends of our zucchinis.
This is the blade for the spiralizer I'm going
to be using.
It's the one with the big triangles.
Let's take the zucchini.
Press and press.
And as easy as that!
Second one!
Cut the zucchini a little bit so we don't
have endless pasta.
To make the zucchini pasta and the pesto,
you will need the following:
1/2 a cup of basil
2 zucchinis, spiralized
3 tablespoons of part-skim ricotta cheese
About 15 toasted hazelnuts - you can just
toast these by putting them in the oven at
350 for about 10 minutes, or you can toast
them on a skillet for about 7 minutes on medium
heat
A couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive
oil
A handful of cherry tomatoes
A couple tablespoons of parmigiano reggiano
A pinch of salt, a pinch of black pepper
Some nonstick olive oil cooking spray
A pinch of red pepper flakes
And a couple cloves of garlic
Roughly chop it so we don't get big bites
of garlic in it.
If you don't love garlic, just use one clove
Grate a couple tablespoons of parmigiano reggiano
And it already smells like an Italian kitchen
in here!
From the garlic to the salty parmigiano reggiano
cheese.
Oooh look at that, beautiful little shreds.
I'm going to add all the ingredients into
the blender so we can make pesto.
Let's start with our basil leaves, parmesan
cheese, the toasted hazelnuts.
The hazelnuts add such good warm delicious
flavor.
Add a little bit of black pepper powder, some
crushed red pepper.
Some salt, go easy on the salt because parmigiano
cheese is pretty salty, so just about a quarter
teaspoon.
Two tablespoons of olive oil, and I'm going
to start blending.
If it needs a little more coaxing, I'm just
going to add a couple tablespoons of warm
water, so that way we cut down on the amount
of oil we use.
This pesto, if you notice, is a little smoother
than your typical pesto.
The reason being that our pasta doesn't have
any starch in it.
If you put a coarse ground pesto on it, it
won't stick, it will slide off because of
the weight.
A slightly smoother pesto like this will ensure
that it coats your zucchini noodles better.
Here I have a nonstick skillet on medium heat.
Just going to hit it with some nonstick cooking
spray.
Then I'm going to add in our zucchini noodles.
You'll see that it will shrink down a lot
because this is just mostly water.
I'm going to add some salt.
The salt will draw out the moisture from the
zucchini, so make sure you salt it at this
stage because we want to pull out all of the
water so you don't end up with soggy pasta.
I love using tongs to handle the zucchini,
because it makes sure that the zucchinis don't
break, and also when you pull them out, most
of the moisture gets left behind in the skillet,
so tongs are a great tool to use for this
purpose.
I just turned up the heat on high, because
now there's no risk of the noodles burning,
because they've released some water.
So it's been about 4 minutes, and we're ready
to take this out, because we want it to be
al dente, we want it to have a bite like pasta,
we don't want it to be mushy zucchini.
I have a bowl over here, and I'm just going
to put some paper towels so any water in the
zucchini will be absorbed.
I'm just going to blot it, and you'll see
that a lot of moisture will come out.
Turn it over, and see that?
So much water!
And that is the water you don't want in your
pasta sauce.
So here's the zucchini, I'm going to wring
it out.
See, so much water - still a lot of moisture
we can get rid of.
So here we have our dry noodles, I'm just
going to go and put the basil right inside
the middle, just like that.
Then I'm going to take the ricotta cheese,
and just going to take a little bit and put
it right on the side.
Grate some parmesan cheese.
Sprinkle just a bit of black pepper because
the black specks on the ricotta make it look
so nice.
Red pepper flakes.
And finally, finish it off with a little bit
of your finishing oil.
Top it off with a little bit of basil.
This is going to be a big bite.
How is this not pasta!
It's so flavorful, little tang from the tomato,
the cream from the ricotta, the heartiness
from the hazelnuts, mmm.
It's a beautiful amalgamation of all those
flavors.
Make this and don't forget to subscribe to
my channel if you'd like to see more such
healthy and delicious recipes.
I'll see you soon, and thanks for watching.
