Creamy Zucchini Pasta was not what I was hunting for at the Sorrento morning market. I went there for lemons. The Amalfi kind, the ones the size of a softball with skin thick enough to peel like an orange.
But my guide that morning, a wiry woman named Rosa who runs market walks out of a little office off Piazza Tasso, kept steering me toward a stall run by an old man named Peppe. He had a crate of tiny zucchini out front, no thicker than my thumb, and Rosa held one up like it was a diamond. That is where the whole trip took a turn.
The Sorrento Market Stall That Started It
Peppe did not really do a sales pitch. He just leaned on his crate and said, in the kind of English you get when someone has been picking it up off tourists for forty years, that these were the zucchini for Nerano. His daughter cooked it every Tuesday. His wife cooked it every Friday. He himself only ate it in July and August, when the squash actually tasted like something.
Rosa translated the rest. She told me about Maria Grazia, a restaurateur in the little fishing village of Nerano, who in 1952 threw together a plate of spaghetti with fried zucchini and cheese for a boat full of hungry beachgoers who had wandered up looking for lunch. That plate became Spaghetti alla Nerano, and it never really left the Sorrento Peninsula, at least not until Stanley Tucci showed up with a film crew and put it on television.
I bought two kilos of Peppe’s zucchini on the spot. I did not have a kitchen. I was staying two towns over in a homestay in Massa Lubrense with a woman named Nonna Carmela who rented out her spare room and made breakfast if you asked nicely.
The Napkin Recipe Nonna Carmela Gave Me
I came back with the zucchini and a wedge of Provolone del Monaco DOP that Rosa had walked me over to at the cheese counter. Carmela laughed at me. Then she cooked the dish that night, in her small kitchen with the window open onto a lemon tree.
She used a paring knife, not a mandoline. She fried the zucchini in a deep pan of olive oil the color of sunflower petals. She layered them with basil on a plate and let them sit while we drank a glass of white. Then she boiled the spaghetti and did the whole emulsion in about four minutes flat, off the heat, tossing the pan like she was mixing cement.
When I asked how she knew when to stop tossing she shrugged and wrote the whole thing down for me on a paper napkin, in pencil. The napkin had olive oil on it already. It is still in my recipe drawer at home. Some of the pencil has smudged.
What Makes This Creamy Zucchini Pasta Actually Creamy
Here is what most people get wrong before they even start. There is no cream in it. No milk. No béchamel. Not a drop. The silkiness is entirely from the aged Provolone del Monaco melting into starchy pasta water, held together by cold butter and the little bit of starch the fried zucchini give up when you mash them.
And the zucchini have to be FRIED. Not sautéed, not roasted, not steamed with a splash of oil. Deep golden fried, in enough olive oil to actually cover them. Carmela told me if you skip the fry step you are just making a sad plate of green pasta.
Garlic is a debate. Purists in Nerano leave it out. Carmela left it out. So I do too, most of the time.
What I Used
- 1 lb bronze cut spaghetti
- 2 lbs small firm zucchini, sliced into thin coins
- 2 cups decent extra virgin olive oil for shallow frying
- 6 oz Provolone del Monaco DOP, finely grated
- 1 oz Parmigiano Reggiano, grated, for a little extra depth
- 3 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 20 fresh basil leaves plus more for topping
- A big pinch of kosher salt for the pasta water
- Freshly cracked black pepper, generous
- 2 full cups of starchy pasta cooking water, reserved before draining
Cooking It in LA Without Cheating
Back home, I have a wooden table in my kitchen that gets the morning sun, and I make this on Sunday afternoons when I have the patience for it. This is not a weeknight pasta. It is a slightly stressful puzzle.
The Provolone del Monaco is the one thing I cannot buy at the corner store. I get mine at Claro’s, an old Italian deli I have been going to since I moved back. If they are out, aged caciocavallo blended with a spoon of Parmigiano gets me most of the way there. That is the traditional Campanian sub, not my invention. The zucchini I find at the Wednesday farmers’ market on Ivar in Hollywood, or the Sunday one at Virginia Avenue Park if I am on that side of town. Small ones. Never the giant clubby summer squash.
Where most home cooks mess this up is the emulsion step. They add the cheese while the pan is still on the flame. The Provolone seizes and clumps into stringy knots and the sauce breaks. It is heartbreaking. The rule is pull the pan off the heat, wait thirty seconds, then add the cheese in three additions, tossing hard between each one.
I burned my first attempt. I had the flame too high, panicked, added the cheese anyway, and ended up with what looked like green ramen sitting in a pond of oil. I ate it standing at the counter. It was not good.
The Little Things That Trip Everyone Up
Fry the zucchini a day ahead if you can swing it. Overnight in the fridge with the torn basil, they go from good to unreal.
Reserve more pasta water than you think you need. Two cups minimum. You will keep splashing it in during the toss to loosen the sauce, and once it is gone it is gone.
Do not salt the fried zucchini. The cheese already carries all the salt this dish needs. Salting the zucchini pulls water and turns them soggy.
And please do not use a nonstick pan for the finishing toss. You want the sauce to catch a little on the sides so you can scrape it back in. A wide stainless sauté pan is my move.
I cook this pasta four or five times every summer now, and every time I open the drawer for that greasy napkin I think of Carmela’s kitchen and the lemon tree outside her window. Some recipes travel home in your suitcase. This one traveled home on a napkin, in pencil, and I hope it never fades.
Creamy Zucchini Pasta
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Wash the zucchini and slice them into thin rounds no thicker than 1/8 inch using a sharp knife or mandoline. Do not salt them.
- Pour the olive oil into a large deep skillet and heat over medium-high until the oil shimmers and reaches about 350 F.
- Working in batches, fry the zucchini rounds in a single layer until they turn deep golden on both sides, about 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Do not crowd the pan.
- Transfer the fried zucchini to a paper towel lined plate with a slotted spoon. Layer them with 10 torn basil leaves and let them rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, or refrigerate overnight for best flavor.
- Reserve 3 tablespoons of the flavored frying oil and set aside. Discard or save the rest for another use.
- Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add 1 tablespoon kosher salt. Drop in the spaghetti and cook 2 minutes short of the package al dente time, stirring occasionally.
- While the pasta cooks, warm the 3 tablespoons reserved zucchini oil in a wide saute pan over medium-low heat. Add about two-thirds of the fried zucchini and gently mash a small portion with the back of a spoon to release their starches.
- Scoop out 2 cups of the starchy pasta water and set aside. Drain the spaghetti and immediately transfer it to the pan with the zucchini.
- Add 1 cup of the reserved pasta water and the cubed butter. Toss vigorously over low heat for 1 minute until the butter melts into the sauce.
- Remove the pan from the heat completely. Wait 30 seconds so the pan cools slightly, then add the grated Provolone del Monaco and Parmigiano-Reggiano in three additions, tossing and stirring energetically after each to mantecare the sauce. Add more pasta water 1 tablespoon at a time if it looks dry.
- Keep tossing off the heat until the cheese emulsifies into a silky golden cream that coats every strand of spaghetti. This takes 2 to 3 minutes of steady motion.
- Fold in the remaining fried zucchini and season with plenty of freshly cracked black pepper. Taste and adjust salt only if needed, since the cheese is already salty.
- Plate immediately in warm shallow bowls, top with the remaining torn basil leaves, and serve at once while the sauce is still glossy.