I invited a few friends around for dinner last week. Seeing as they have all been following my food blog I wanted to make a good impression and being quite an organized person, I had carefully planned what I was going to make, made sure I had enough time and to buy the ingredients the night before.
Feeling really confident that this recipe will go down a treat I head to Rewe. Panic time! They have run out of fresh basil? Why do they have no pine nuts? These are core ingredients for my meal! But Rewe is meant to be one of the good supermarkets!
In a fluster I dash to a nearby Kaisers and manage to grab the last fresh basil and they had loads of pine nuts. But no green beans? I end up back in Rewe to buy the rest of the ingredients…
I finally end up with the ingredients for a dinner party classic and even though I had to face the hurdles of the German supermarket the meal was a complete success!
Ingredients: serves 6
400g tagliatelle
75g fine green beans
150g frozen peas (defrosted)
Fresh mint and basil leaves (a few leaves for each plate to garnish)
Olive oil
For the green pesto:
2 large handfuls of fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)
75g grated parmesan cheese
3 tbspn olive oil
3 tbpsn pine nuts
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and ground black pepper
To make the pesto: put all the ingredients into a blender and blend until it forms a smooth paste (or looks like green pesto!).
Heat 1 tbspn of olive oil in a small frying pan and add the green beans. Cook on a gentle heat for around 5 minutes (occasionally turning them over in the pan).
In the meantime cook the tagliatelle according to packet instructions. I heat a large pan of water and bring it to the boil. Then drop in the pasta and cook for 3 -4 minutes or until just cooked.
Drain the pasta and add back to the pan. Gently stir in the fresh green pesto so that it coats the pasta well.
Add the green beans and peas to the pan. Then add a bit of black pepper and mix well.
Plate up the pasta and garnish with a few mint leaves around the side of each plate. Top with some fresh basil leaves and more black pepper if needed.
For more great recipes check out A Modern Rose Website.
