Pasta con i Tenerumi

Cucchiaio d’Argento’s selected pasta con i tenerumi sits between a pasta dish and a soup. Tender leaves from the Sicilian long zucchini cook with the vegetable and broken spaghetti, then receive an own tomato picchi-pacchi sauce.

Garlic browns in olive oil for the sauce and is removed before diced peeled tomatoes enter. Salt seasons the tomatoes as gentle cooking reduces them to a thicker sauce.

The tender leaves are washed, drained and cut into strips. The long zucchini is peeled and cut into small pieces, preparing both parts of the vegetable for the same pot.

The leaves and zucchini cook first in abundant boiling water before broken spaghetti are added. Some of the cooking liquid is drained away, then the prepared tomato sauce is mixed into the pasta and vegetables.

A final grinding of black pepper completes the dish. The retained vegetable cooking liquid gives this selected version its character between a brothy pasta and a light soup, with the tender leaves central to its Sicilian identity.