Miles Collins

Italian Pasta Sauce Recipe

As pumpkins go (and grow) the hundredweight variety I grew this year have been nothing short of a revelation. What a colour and taste, quite simply the nicest pumpkin I have eaten and not because I grew it myself, though my gardening prowess must have made a difference

I always think of Italian cookery when I see pumpkin, don’t know why but maybe it’s because they do such wonderful dishes with them. Pumpkins are very versatile and they do carry other ingredients with them; ginger, nutmeg, coriander, chilli all spring to mind and from the herb garden, my favourite with pumpkin; sage.
So here’s what I cooked for my dinner whilst suffering the dross that was the first half of England’s football (soccer) match against a breakaway Soviet republic nobody in the football world has ever heard of.

Boil some water for the pasta, add salt and a drop of oil to keep the pasta swimming around in an orderly manner. Cut a wedge off your chosen pumpkin, trim the hard skin off, whip out the seeds and cut into irregular pieces. Irregular? I hear you cry! Yes, because what I like is for some of the pumpkin to soften and blend into the sauce whilst the rest retains its shape and texture. Take a sauce pan, cover the bottom with olive oil and fry three sliced shallots in it. As they soften add a pinch of dried chilli and three or four sage leaves. Now get a thumb sized piece of good salami, any will do but I like wild boar salami with this. Cut this into cubes and add to the pan followed by the pumpkin. Season generously and let everything do its thing for a couple of minutes.

Take some passata (sieved chopped tomatoes) and add enough to create a sauce, thin with a little water or chicken stock. Reduce the heat and leave to simmer. As the pumpkin begins to soften mash the smaller pieces into your sauce. Cook the pasta.

By now England will have scored five goals and you (me) will have missed all of them. Pour yourself a glass of wine and stick two fingers up at the television. Stir the pasta. Check the pumpkin is soft and adjust the seasoning. Drain the pasta when cooked and reserve a little of its cooking water for adjusting the sauce. Season the pasta then fold it through the sauce, finish with a little lemon juice and top with freshly grated parmesan.

Consume whilst watching David Beckham show all of the others how to kick a ball to one of his team mates and not the opposition as is the current trend with Fabio Capello’s team of half wits.