Shannon Martinez is a chef, restaurant owner and author.
She is the owner and executive chef at Smith And Daughter a vegan restaurant in Melbourne, there is also the Smith And Deli serving a range of vegan meats and foods.
On Tuesday, she visited The Morning Show to make her delicious chamomile tea and squash spaghettini.
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Recipe below:
CHAMOMILE, SAFFRON & SQUASH SPAGHETTINI
SERVES: 4
This is the best warm-weather pasta dish. When I cook it for the restaurant, I throw heaps of chamomile into the cooking water and it turns the pasta this beautiful yellow colour. This is the most delicate dish in this book and it’s a great way to use up all those cheap summer zucchinis.
Ingredients
100 g (3½ oz) vegan butter
5 chamomile tea bags, torn open and emptied (or approx. 15 g/½ oz loose-leaf tea)
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) dry spaghettini
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely minced
pinch of saffron threads
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed
4 yellow squashes, sliced 5 mm (¼ in) thick
2 green zucchinis (courgettes), sliced in 5 mm (¼ in) rounds
zest and juice of ½ lemon
small handful of mint leaves
Ricotta (page 23; optional)
Method
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a medium heat.
Add half of the chamomile tea to the melted butter and cook over a low heat for about 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the tea to infuse in the butter for about 10 minutes.
Pour the butter through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Discard the tea, reserving the butter.
Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Once boiling, add the remaining chamomile tea, turn off the heat and allow it to infuse for 5 minutes.
Using a small sieve, remove as much of the tea as possible, then heavily salt the water.
Return to the boil, then add the spaghettini and cook according to the packet instructions.
While the pasta is cooking, add the chamomile-infused butter and the olive oil to a large frying pan and warm over medium–high heat. Add the garlic, saffron threads and fennel seeds and cook for 1 minute before adding the squash and zucchini.
Fry, tossing often, until the vegetables are just beginning to soften.
Using a slotted pasta spoon or tongs, remove the cooked pasta directly from the pot and add it to the frying pan. Season well.
Add the lemon juice and zest to the pasta and stir through. Using a ladle, add about 125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) of the chamomile pasta water and quickly toss through the pasta to emulsify the sauce.
Add the mint leaves and give the pan a quick toss.
To serve, place the pasta on plates and spoon over any remaining sauce. If using the ricotta, scatter over the pasta just before serving.
RICOTTA
MAKES 1
We’ve come a long way in the vegan cheese world in the last five years, but the good cheeses are still few and far between – and I say that living in a major city. So, I wanted
to give you a fail-safe ricotta recipe that you can access 24/7 using ingredients you can even find at a gas station.
Ingredients
1 litre (34 fl oz/4 cups) soy milk
1 teaspoon salt flakes
a few cracks of white pepper
60 ml (2 fl oz/¼ cup) white-wine vinegar
extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling (optional)
sea salt flakes, to taste (optional)
Method
Heat the soy milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the side of the pan – don’t let it simmer or boil. Turn off the heat, add the salt and pepper and slowly pour in the vinegar.
Gently pass a spatula or spoon through the milk only a few times. Leave to sit for 1 hour.
Line a sieve with a piece of muslin (cheesecloth), or any thin cloth, and set the sieve over a bowl. Pour the milk into the sieve, then refrigerate and leave to drain for at least 12 hours, preferably overnight.
Remove the ricotta from the cloth and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.