Easy and elegant: shallots with tagliatelle

It’s almost too easy. This combination of creamy, melt-in-your mouth shallots and tagliatelle is so simple it makes a perfect entree on a busy night. And it looks great.

It came from an unexpected find at our local markets: shallots with their green tops still attached. The bulbs cook down into a creamy sauce for the pasta while the tops hold their shape and colour, just to make it all look good.

A simple but elegant starter: green shallots with tagliatelle pasta, topped with cracked pepper

• Servings: 3-4
• Time: 30 minutes
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

• 1 shallot bulb with its green tops
• 2 or 3 bundles of tagliatelle (see note)
• a few sprigs of marjoram
• cracked black pepper

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of well salted water to the boil, then tip in the tagliatelle and boil it until it is al dente.
2. While you’re waiting for the pasta to cook, chop the shallots, bulb, tops and all, then lightly saute in a little olive oil until the bulb softens and starts to dissolve.
3. Strip the leaves off the marjoram and stir into the shallots.
4. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and stir in the cooked shallots.
5. Top with pepper and serve immediately.

Notes

It does feel like cheating to write up something this simple as a recipe, but it’s too good to forget; and we don’t come across green shallots very often here.

Our tagliatelle comes in easy, serving sized bundles. We used two bundles between three of us, but the serves were rather small: we still had dinner to come.

You can use rice noodles if you have someone who can’t tolerate egg-based pasta. Just remember to cook them in two different pots.

Tagliatelle pasta comes in neatly bundled single serves

 

And here’s the finished dish, minus the pepper (oops).

A simple but elegant starter: green shallots with tagliatelle pasta