Pumpkin Pasta

A spare cup of cooked pumpkin can go a long long way,  perfect in fact for a homemade Pumpkin Pasta recipe.

I make no secret of my love of my ‘waste not’ approach to living and a long time supporter of Love Food Hate Waste New Zealand. Several years ago they asked if I would create a recipe for New World, which I did.  I had never made pasta from pumpkin before so I was well up for the challenge.

This recipe calls for cooked pumpkin, so a great recipe to have up your sleeve following a roast dinner when you are likely to have some spare pumpkin lurking in the fridge ready to be used up.

*Cooked Pumpkin:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Cut pumpkin in half and scrape out seeds and fibrous flesh with a large spoon (compost seeds or reserve for Roasted Pumpkin Seeds).
3. Carefully cut into equal sized chunks, skin on. Drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.
4. Place in an oven tray and roast until soft, approx 40 minutes.
5. Remove skin (add to the compost) and mash soft pumpkin.

Pumpkin Pasta

Serves:  4

Prepping time:  30 minutes
Cooking time:  15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked pumpkin*, mashed
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp + ½ tsp salt
• flour to dust
• 100g butter, melted
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 100g feta, crumbled
• ¼ cup Parmesan, finely grated
• fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• freshly ground pepper, to taste

Method

1. Add mashed pumpkin, sifted flour and 1/4 tsp of salt to a bowl. Knead by hand for several minutes until all the flour is folded in. Transfer dough to a floured surface. Cut into two portions.
2. Take one portion and roll as thinly as practically possible on the floured surface, approx 2mm thick. Add a sprinkling of extra flour on the top of the pasta sheet and rub in lightly with your fingers. Roll up the dough into a pinwheel log. Work quickly to chop into 1cm strips. Unfurl roll immediately and place pumpkin pasta ribbons on a floured surface while you cut the remainder of the roll. Repeat for the remaining portion of pumpkin pasta dough.
3. In a large saucepan of boiling water, add ½ tsp salt. In small batches, simmer pasta for 3 minutes to cook, then remove with a slotted spoon. Transfer cooked pasta to a draining bowl (or sieve) while you cook the remaining pasta. The pasta will have a slimy feel and when cooked properly will have the appearance of a fine line of uncooked pasta in the centre of each strip.
4. In a large fry pan over medium heat, melt butter and saute garlic for several minutes. Add cooked pasta to the garlic butter and coat well. Turn off heat. Add crumbled feta and gently fold through.
5. Serve hot with sprinkled Parmesan cheese, fresh parsley and ground pepper to taste.