Pasta shells with sweetcorn & green chilli

November 19, 2023

   

On a recent flick through One Pot, Pan, Planet this pasta recipe appealed to me for its warm-weather flavours: corn, basil, green chilli and ricotta. It uses one pot and one pan and, for the sake of the planet, I rounded up several ingredient quantities to suit how they're packaged locally.

There's a lot of washing and chopping involved, but not too much complication. My corn really didn't char as it was intended to, and I think I'll shift from our small-sized cast iron pan to our new-ish wok if I make this again. The basil leaves were gorgeous when dinner was served, but very bitter when I added them to leftovers, so I'll try picking them just one meal at a time.

With very little sauce involved and a dab of cool ricotta, this is a pasta dish that's almost as nice at room temperature as it is fresh and hot, so any leftovers can skip the microwave entirely.

Pasta shells with sweetcorn & green chilli

(slightly adapted from Anna Jones' One Pot, Pan, Planet) 

1 bunch silverbeet/chard, stalks and leaves separated and roughly chopped

2 green chillies, finely chopped

kernels from 3-4 corn cobs, or equivalent frozen kernels

500g packet small pasta shells

olive oil

salt and pepper

250g ricotta

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch basil, leaves picked

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Chop the chard and chillies while you wait, and take the corn off the cob. (If you're using frozen corn, cover it with boiling water, then drain when thawed through.) When the water is ready, cook the pasta according to its directions.

While the pasta is cooking, set a frypan over medium heat and lightly cover the base with olive oil. Add the corn kernels and some salt and pepper, cooking until the kernels are tender and starting to brown (take them further than I did!).

Add the silverbeet stalks, cooking for a few minutes, then the silverbeet leaves and the chillies. Continue cooking and stirring regularly until the leaves have wilted.

When the pasta is ready, drain it but retain some of its water in a mug. In either the frypan or the pasta pot, stir the pasta and the corn-silverbeet mixture together. Stir in half the ricotta, and whatever amount of pasta water is needed to spread that ricotta across the pasta (very little, for me). Turn off the heat if you haven't already, and stir in the lemon zest and juice.

Spoon the pasta into bowls, garnishing with the basil leaves and remaining ricotta.