Yellow peppers bring a splash of sunshine to this easy pasta dish.
Ingredients
—2 large yellow peppers (bell peppers/capsicums) 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 250g (8-9 oz) cherry tomatoes, halved 400g (14 oz) rigatoni or short tubular pasta Salt and flaky sea salt 1 cup frozen baby peas 2 Tbsp lemon-infused olive oil 1 large clove garlic, peeled and finely crushed 20 or so small leaves of basil Freshly grated parmesan cheese for serving Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
—1 Halve peppers, remove cores and seeds and dice. Put peppers in a large frying pan (skillet) with extra virgin olive oil and cook gently for 15-20 minutes until beautifully soft (they shouldn’t fry). Transfer peppers to a plate, increase heat and add cherry tomatoes, cut side down, and cook for 5 minutes, just until starting to soften.
2 Cook pasta in gently boiling, well salted water until al dente. Put peas in a sieve and rinse off ice crystals under hot water. Cook peas in a saucepan of boiling salted water for about 5 minutes, until tender. Drain.
3 Have ready the lemon oil mixed in a large bowl with the garlic. Chop basil and add. Drain pasta and toss with lemon oil. Pour on contents of frying pan, scraping in all the oil. Add peas and toss everything gently together. Serve immediately with plenty of parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.
Recipe Notes
Make sure the baby peas you choose are not flavoured with mint because the mint is potent, most likely chemically made rather than fresh, and will ruin the dish. That’s my opinion anyway.
I used baby basil leaves, but larger ones will work just as well.
Baby basil
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