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I love cooking this dish up for a lazy stay-at-home Friday night, or any night! This recipe is all the rage right now because Stanley Tucci in his CNN series “Searching for Italy” showcased the dish during his visit to Naples.

It is a super simple yet delicious dish that you can serve as a first course or main and what a great way to eat your vegetables!

Spaghetti with Fried Zucchini alla Nerano

Gail Pearce Elegant Entertaining
This is a simple yet delicious dish that you can serve as a first course or main and what a great way to eat your vegetables.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Course Main Course, Side Dish
Cuisine Italian
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

  • 14 oz (400g) spaghetti pasta
  • 6 small (700g) zucchini (Italian ones if you can find them)
  • 3 cups sunflower or avocado oil
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup (240 ml) provolone del monaco or caciocavallo cheese, grated
  • 1/4 cup (60 ml) parmesan cheese, grated
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1/4 cup basil leaves, roughly chopped
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest for garnish, optional
  • black coarse ground Pepper

Instructions
 

  • Wash and cut the zucchini into thin slices.
  • Fry the zucchini in oil until they are browned. Put them in a bowl and let them sit in the refridgerator overnight or a couple of hours befor dinner.
  • Take the zucchini from the fridge and cream 1/3 of them either by pushing through a sieve or briefly liquidizing in a food blender.
  • Boil the pasta in plenty of lightly salted water until the pasta is al dente, then drain. Keep a glass of the pasta cooking water.
  • Heat some olive oil in a frying pan with the 2 garlic cloves and cook taking care not to burn the garlic.
  • Add the creamed zucchini and pasta, stir together. Add the zucchini slices and stir together, if the dish appears dry add some of the saved pasta cooking water. Add butter and cook on low heat for a minute.
  • Take off the heat, stir in half of the parmesan and 3/4 of the provolone until it starts to melt and become creamy.
  • Season with a sprinkle of pepper.
  • Serve garnished with lemon zest, basil leaves cut into pieces, and extra grated provolone and parmesan.

Notes

Although the original recipe calls for Provolone del Monaco, this cheese isn’t readily available in North America, however, there are other spicy provolone cheeses produced in Northern Italy and even in North America which can be used instead. You can also use caciocavallo cheese.
The zucchini should be the Italian kind—very small, sweet, ribbed vegetables, pale green in color.  We only get them in the summer here and so I have substituted the dark green variety.
Like many Italian pasta recipes, there are slightly different versions of alla Nerano. Not all include the creaming part of the fried zucchini and the garlic.
Also, the lemon zest for garnish is my touch and I use gluten-free chickpea spaghetti and it is so delicious.
Enjoy!
Keyword #dinner, #firstcourse, #italiancuisine, #pasta, #spaghetti, #spaghettiwithfiredzucchiniallanerano, #zucchini
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