Pasta with Three Cheeses served with Shaved Fennel Salad

This is so quick and easy, but oh so good. Pappardelle is an egg pasta that works very well with the recipe, and Filotea is of particularly high quality (but other egg pastas can be used). Pecorino is sharper and more assertive, but aged Parmigiano Reggiano is also very good.

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Method

For the pasta, you need to start this by measuring out the cheeses onto a plate (the dolcelatte should be cut into small cubes) to have them at the ready, then cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water for 3–4 minutes. As soon as it’s cooked, drain the pasta in a colander and immediately return it to the saucepan so that it still has quite a bit of moisture clinging to it.

Now quickly add the cheeses, and stir over low heat till the cheese begins to melt into a sublime creamy sauce that coats the pasta. Add some coarsely ground black pepper and serve it very quickly in hot bowls with the extra Pecorino to sprinkle over.

To prepare the fennel salad, trim away a little from the base, then cut off any green fronds of fennel from the top and save them for later. Now halve the fennel through the root and thinly slice it lengthways using the slicer on a box grater, a vegetable peeler or a very sharp knife. Then slice the chicory in half and remove any tough inner core, and slice very thinly. Now toss them both with the lemon juice, olive oil and some seasoning and arrange them on 2 side plates. Finally chop the green fronds of fennel to sprinkle over the top.

Nutrition (pasta) 576kcals/58.9g carbohydrate/3.2g sugars/28.4g fat/18.1g saturated fat/1.4g salt per serving
Nutrition (fennel salad) 67kcals/4.3g carbohydrate/2.6g sugars/5.7g fat/0.9g saturated fat/0.7g salt per serving