Pâtes au pesto de légumes verts de printemps

Ingrédients

• 200 g penne pasta
• sea salt
• 12 spears early asparagus (the really skinny spears)
• 2 baby leeks
• 2 handfuls sugar snap peas
• 80 g baby spinach
• handful fresh mint
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp freshly grated parmesan or pecorino, plus extra to serve

Préparation

1. 1

   Set the pasta to boil, as per the packets instructions (I usually find it takes about 18 minutes) in a pan of salted water, until just tender.

2. 2

   Meanwhile, prepare and blanch the veg. Top, tail and rinse the leeks, and cut them into generous centimetre rounds. Tail the asparagus spears and do likewise, and half or third the snap peas, depending on their size. You want everything to be about the same size.

3. 3

   Put them in a heatproof bowl, salt well and pour over boiling water. Drain as well as you can after 5 minutes. The veg should be tender, but still crunchy.

4. 4

   To make the pesto, combine the spinach, mint, lemon zest, olive oil, parmesan and a pinch more salt in a blender (I used my NutriNinja) until it has reached your desired consistency – in the pictures I’ve made the pesto quite smooth, but a chunkier pesto also works well for this recipe. You may need to stop it and stir everything with a spatula a couple of times to make sure you get all the bits!

5. 5

   To assemble, drain the pasta well, and toss together with the vegetables and the sauce so that the pasta is well coated. Serve with some extra parmesan grated on top!