Nettle Cavatelli with Wild Garlic Pesto and Burrata
A recipe to close the gap between plant and plate
Saucy, flavourful, and draped with silky curds of burrata, this cavatelli is a crowd pleaser. It is also an idea, plated. Last weekend, I hosted a supper event called Soil Stories during which guests gathered to eat and ponder one seemingly simple question: where does our food come from? This is a question that, once you start pulling at the thread, unravels into something much bigger with impacts on the health of our planet, our bodies, and our enjoyment of the food on our tables.
Take this cavatelli, one of the courses served, for example. It was made with foraged nettles and wild garlic, two plants growing abundantly in forests across the country. Foraging for our food cuts out the middleman, illuminating the connection in our food chain between plant and plate. When we forage, we can trace our ingredients directly to their origins and harvest them at their peak, when they will pack the most nutritious punch. Like most plants, nettles and wild garlic flourish where soil is full of organic matter and nutrients, reflecting a healthy ecosystem.
The entire menu reflected this philosophy. Purple sprouting broccoli fritters were coated in a crispy chickpea flour batter and served alongside labneh rippled with wild garlic oil. A silky confit carrot and soy soup was paired with fluffy olive oil brioche. Asparagus was blanched and served with miso mayonnaise. Rye choux was stuffed with cardamom cream and the pinkest forced rhubarb.
These ingredients served to tell a story: chickpeas and soybeans pull nitrogen from the air and transform it into a form usable by plants. Rye plants have extensive rootsystems that aerate soil and prevent erosion. Ingredients grown in season on healthy soil, like the rhubarb, asparagus, nettles, wild garlic, and purple sprouting broccoli used here, are harvested at their prime when both flavour and nutrient density are at their peak. I cooked with olive oil from Citizens of Soil, a company determined to source oils from olive trees growing on regenerative farms, and their team led an olive oil tasting that reshaped how many of us think about olive oil. There was even a carrot taste test, where guests compared conventionally farmed carrots to their regeneratively farmed counterparts. The difference in sweetness and flavour was, for many, a revelation. Soil Stories was a chance to plant a few small-yet-meaningful seeds, and I hope to see them grow.
While the season for foraging is in full swing, below is a recipe for making use of the abundant nettles and wild garlic growing in forests and hedgerows:
Ingredients:
For the pasta:
200g 00 flour
½ tsp salt
50g nettle leaves
2 large eggs
For the pesto:
70g roasted almonds
200g wild garlic
50g parmigiano reggiano
Juice from 1 lemon
75mL olive oil
Salt, to taste
To serve:
150g ball burrata
Olive oil, to drizzle
Freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and have a slotted spoon and bowl full of ice water ready. Once the water comes to a boil, add the nettles and cook for one minute, pressing them down to ensure they stay submerged. After one minute, immediately transfer them to the ice water with your slotted spoon. Once cold, drain them and use your hands to squeeze out all excess water.
Add the blanched and drained nettles and both eggs to a blender and blend until completely smooth, with no leafy bits of nettle remaining.
Tip your flour onto a work surface and create a well in the middle. Pour your nettle and egg mixture into the centre of the well and using a fork, begin gently incorporating the flour into the egg mixture little by little from around the walls of the well. When the mixture becomes too thick to whisk with a fork, start kneading with the heel of the palm of your hand, pressing the ball away from you and folding it back on itself. Knead for roughly 10 minutes, until you have a smooth and elastic dough that springs back when you poke it. Cover it with a bowl and leave it to rest for at least 30 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the pesto.
For the pesto, add the almonds to a blender or food processor and pulse until a coarse meal forms. Add in the wild garlic, parmigiano, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt, and blend again until you have a smooth paste. Taste and adjust with more salt or lemon juice if necessary, then set aside while you shape your pasta.
To shape the cavatelli, dust a tray generously with flour and work with only a small portion of dough at a time and keep the rest covered. Break off small pieces of dough, about the size of the tip of your finger, and roll them into little balls. Using your thumb, press each ball while pushing away from yourself to form curled shells (this can also be done on a cavatelli board or fork to create ridges in your pasta). Transfer the finished cavatelli to your floured tray and repeat with the remaining dough.
When you are ready to cook your pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil, then season it generously with salt. Add the cavatelli to the boiling water and cook for 3-4 minutes, until they float and are tender. Reserve one cup of the cooking water, then drain the rest and return the cooked cavatelli to your pot. Add the pesto and â…“ of the reserved water and stir until the sauce coats the pasta generously. If necessary, add more of the water to loosen it.
Transfer the pasta to bowls and tear the burrata overtop, then garnish with cracks of black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
Notes:
When harvesting and handling raw nettles, wear gloves as their sting can irritate bare skin. Take care when foraging to watch your step and avoid brushing against them.
When foraging, please harvest responsibly: never take more than you need and always leave enough behind to allow the patch to regenerate.
Make sure you can confidently identify what you’re foraging for. If you’re unsure, go with someone experienced.
Buonissimo
What a delicious recipe! My grandmother Lorenzina always used nettles for the filling of Tuscan tortelli with ricotta. She taught me when and how to pick them at the right time, and how to cook them properly for this kind of preparation. During my cooking classes in Tuscany, we used to make cavatelli with durum wheat semolina — it was a recipe from a lady from Puglia who ran the cooking school.