Hello lovelies, there are recipes whose ingredient list is so short that you look twice and think something must be missing. Spaghetti alla Nerano is exactly that case: zucchini, cheese, basil, olive oil, garlic, pasta. And still it turns into a sauce so creamy that everyone at the table asks how much cream went in. The answer is always the same, which is none at all.
The secret is in the zucchini. They are cut paper-thin, ideally on a mandoline, and then fried golden in plenty of olive oil in batches. As they fry they lose water and turn sweet and nutty, and that flavour is what carries the whole dish later. Pale slices make the sauce watery, so I let mine go properly dark. If you like zucchini in a leading role generally, my zucchini involtini with spinach and feta are the rolled-up version of the same idea.
One third of the fried slices gets blended together with half of the basil. That green paste is the base of the sauce, while the rest of the zucchini stays in slices and only joins the pasta right at the end. That way you get both on the plate, the velvety binding and the soft little rounds in between.
The trickiest moment comes with the cheese. The pan has to be off the heat first, otherwise the parmesan pulls into strings and the sauce turns grainy. After that I add the hot pasta water only a spoonful at a time and keep stirring until everything gleams, because the starch in that water is the only binder in the recipe. If you want to try this emulsion technique with no cheese at all, my vegan feta pasta deluxe shows how it works on the plant-based side.
Things move quickly at the table, because this pasta waits for nobody. It goes straight into deep bowls, gets scattered with fresh basil and a little more parmesan and is eaten while it still gleams. When the zucchini glut hits again, the next day usually brings my crispy baked zucchini fries to our table so genuinely nothing goes to waste.
I hope your first forkful brings the same small moment of disbelief it brings us, that so little can add up to so much. And if the grill is already going outside, my grilled zucchini halloumi skewers absolutely belong on the table next to it.
