
Raffaella Cova’s Spaghetti Micol
Raffaella Cova is a wonderful cook who runs beautiful classes in Montalcino. We featured a conversation with her in the past, and today she kindly publishes one of her favourite autumnal recipes: Spaghetti Micol. You can find other great recipes or reserve a cooking class in Tuscany via www.lunchwithraffaella.com
This is a recipe I made for my vegetarian friend Micol as a birthday present. I have included some of her favourite ingredients, including extra virgin olive oil.
Spaghetti Micol
Ingredients for 4 people:
280gr Spaghetti alla chitarra
1 beetroot (about 250gr)
A bouquet of fresh herbs (such as marjoram, origano, sage, rosemary, chives, mint and thyme)
100 gr of fresh goat cheese
2 tbls of toasted hazelnuts
1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar
1 tps of granulated sugar
Tuscan extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper
Wash and peel half of the beetroot, then cut it in small cubes of about 2 cm, and simmer in abundant water
Cut half beetroot in small cubes of about 1/2 cm and simmer in abundant water. Once the beets are cooked but still have a bite, take them all out, because we are using the water for cooking the spaghetti.
Cut the other half of the beetroot in a brunoise style of very small cubes of about 2mm each, and marinate in the vinegar, in which the sugar has been dissolved.
Trim and cut the bouquet of herbs thinly, and mix in with a lot of extra virgin olive oil.
Whisk the cheese with a little water and a generous amount of olive oil, until you have the density of batter.
Loosely chop the toasted hazelnuts
As the pasta is cooking in the beetroot water, divide the cheese sauce in 4 serving dishes.
When the pasta is ready quickly fry it with the herbs and their oil, and the cooked cubes of beetroot.
When all the flavours have been well blended, nest the spaghetti over the cheese sauce in each plate and decorate the with brunoise beetroot (without the vinegar), the nuts, a little pepper and some extra virgin olive oil