Ingredients
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3 zucchini (organic, with skin)
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100 g basil, use only the leaves
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100 g avocado ripe pulp
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50 g cashews, walnuts, almonds or pine nuts
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100 g strained steamed khale or chard (optional and not “raw”)
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2 tbsp lemon juice
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salt to taste
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garlic and/or onion to taste (optional)
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few cherry tomatoes, see “variations”
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few black olives, see “variations”
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water as needed
Procedure
Preparing the sauce: blend the basil, lemon juice and avocado. Once well blended, add the nuts and blend again, then add the steamed kale or chard (steam for 4 minutes, drain and cool) and continue blending. To achieve a bechamel-sort consistency for the sauce, add a little water and a pinch of salt.
Preparing the spaghetti/tagliatelle: wash the zucchini and model them into spaghetti or tagliatelle form by using a potato peeler or a juienne cutter or a hand powered machine called Spiralizer.
Assembling: add the sauce to the spaghetti/tagliatelle and place on plates (rolling up spaghetti with a fork turning them on a soup spoon to make a little mountain). Make thin slices of the olives and the cherry tomatoes and add here and there, top with a basil leaf.
Variation: do a sort of lasagna by putting the zucchini-tagliatelle-slices in layers, first covering the bottom of your dish with them and spreading the pesto sauce above each layer. Interlayer slices of black olives and of cherry tomatoes on each level, you can build a 4 story high lasagna. Decorate with zucchini, olives, tomato slices and a basil leaf. Serve raw at room temperature.
You can also make a non raw versione by using a baking dish in which you have firt put sesame seeds on the bottom (for non-sticking). Place for 20’ in the oven at 180° C, covered with foil, and then 5 minutes uncovered at 200° C.
© Photo:
by Larissa Rolley