Carrot and walnut pasta

Ingredients:

• 100g walnuts
• 200g carrots
• olive oil
• butter
• 200g pasta
• salt

• 15g garlic (about 3 cloves)
• 50g red onion
• 15g balsamic vinegar
• 15g red wine vinegar
• 1.5 teaspoon of chipotle chilli powder (or a mix of smoked paprika and Kashmiri chilli powders)
• 0.25 teaspoon salt

• 100g Pecorino cheese
• parsley
• 30g butter

Methods:

• Preheat the oven to 200C. Toast the walnuts in the oven until they start to turn golden, about 10min.
• Meanwhile, chop the carrots into thick coins.
• Preheat the pan, add a splash of olive oil and a blob of butter, let the butter melt. Brown the carrots on both sides.
• Meanwhile, start boiling the pasta in salty water.
• Grate the Pecorino cheese. Finely chop the parsley. Peel the garlic.
• When the carrots are almost ready, add in garlic through a garlic press. Wait until it smells really good, about a minute, and take it off the heat.
• Roughly chop the red onion. Place in a bowl, add walnuts, both vinegars, chilli powder(s), salt and carrots. Handblender everything into a pesto.
• Once the pasta is ready, place a mug in the sink before draining the pasta (to reserve some pasta water, in case it will be needed to reach a pesto-like consistency) and mix it with the pesto and 30g of butter. Add the cheese and mix again.
• Serve topped with parsley.

Notes: If your carrots come with fresh leaves, you don’t need parsley. Just chop the leaves finely and add them into the bowl together with the walnuts prior to handblendering everything together.

Inspired by: Helen Rennie