This is a Quickie Recipe. It is green, for spring. It makes use of fresh spring produce. It is a variation on the classic dish of linguine with white clam sauce, from the Italian kitchen. This is a fast dish to make because you do not have to wait for a big pot of water to boil for classic wheat noodles. It’s unbelievable how fast this dish goes.
This dish has only one ingredient that is animal-based, so if you are vegetarian, you may leave it out. It is gluten free. It has dairy in the form of Parmigiano reggiano cheese. Alternatively, if you wish, you may add some shrimp at the second stage of ingredients discussed below.
Allow your shrimp to steam until they are pink. Do not overcook. This dish depends on having classic pantry ingredients on hand. This includes vegetable broth and good grated parmesan cheese plus a can of minced clams in broth. You could make it with fresh clams, but that would not be a Quickie Recipe. It would be a From Scratch recipe.
This recipe requires a piece of kitchen equipment, a spiralizer. The noodles in this pasta dish are not made from wheat. I used my favorite new piece of kitchen equipment, the spiralizer. I have previously reviewed stand and hand-held spiralizers in my blog posts. I decided that for the test kitchen, I needed to get the Rolls Royce, so I ordered the spiralizer attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer. I had it sent from Target and it arrived at my front door. I quickly hooked it up to the stand mixer following directions.
I went to the Farmer’s Market and bought spring veggies, including zucchini, baby spinach and baby asparagus. I used the fine noodle attachment, and I made beautiful zucchini noodles from three medium-sized zucchini in about six minutes. All I had to do was rinse all of the equipment and wipe down the stand mixer. Thus, the new piece of equipment fulfilled the easy cleanup requirement for recommending kitchen appliances here at Essential Puree.
I made the dish in an electric wok, but it is just as easily made in a skillet or sauté pan. The noodles are sauteed a little in the garlic oil, then they are simmered in broth. You have this versatility with a non-wheat noodle.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: Ten Minutes Level: Easy
Ingredients
- 3 medium zucchini
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- Olive oil
- ½ pound baby spinach
- ½ pound asparagus tips, preferably fresh, frozen ok
- ¼ cup roughly chopped parsley, fresh
- ½ box of vegetable broth
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 1 can minced clams in clam juice
- ¼ cup parmigiana reggiano
- Salt and white pepper to taste
Directions
Using a spiralizer, hand-held or stand, spiralize the zucchini into noodles.
Heat up your skillet or electric wok with three tbsp. olive oil to medium high heat.
Stir in the garlic for one minute. Stir in the baby spinach for one minute. Stir in the baby asparagus tips for one minute.
Add in the zucchini noodles and stir fry to blend in with the vegetables.
Add one half of the container of vegetable broth. Add the parsley. Add in the juice of half of the lemon.
Reduce the heat to a simmer and cover for four minutes.
Check the noodles for doneness. Taste the broth. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.
Add the clam juice and the parmigiana reggiano, stir.
Cover again and cook for two minutes. Add the clams to the top of the dish to warm through, but not boil.
Cover for a minute. Allow to warm through.
For the Puree
Take a cup of the pasta with the vegetables and place in the bowl of a mini food processor or the pitcher of a blender. Take a half cup of the sauce. Pulse until broken up. Puree. This should be thick enough for your level of the NDD, but if it needs thickening, then use one of the instant thickeners.
Swirl Away!
Featured photo credit: debbulcock via Pixabay, cc