Sometimes a summer evening doesn’t start with a plan, but with whatever ends up in the pan.
A handful of vegetables, some pasta, and suddenly you have something that is more than the sum of its parts.
In summer, things don’t need to be complicated. Food can be light, quick to get on the table, full of flavour without much effort — something you make while the evening is still warm and the day slowly fades out. A plate of pasta, a drizzle of olive oil, whatever vegetables are good at the moment, and you’re already most of the way there.
This is one of those dishes that fits that rhythm perfectly: simple, fresh, and Sicilian in feeling. In Sicily they use tenerumi for it — the young leaves and shoots of the long cucuzza squash — but you can just as easily make it with what you can find anywhere. Courgette, spinach, a few basic ingredients, and a glass of dry white wine on the side — that’s really all a summer evening needs.
A morning in Bagheria
I was back at my greengrocer in Bagheria.
As I’ve mentioned before: the vegetables come straight from the field, picked that same day. You simply cook with whatever the season gives you. And it looks like it’s tenerumi season again.
What are tenerumi?
Tenerumi are, quite simply, the young leaves and shoots of a specific long Sicilian squash: the cucuzza.
In this photo you can clearly see what tenerumi and cucuzza look like. And here you can see how the plant grows.
In Sicily, tenerumi are almost always cooked together with the long squash itself. They are mild, slightly sweet even, and definitely not bitter like many other leafy greens. They give soups or pasta a soft, almost creamy, silky texture.
Taste-wise, they’re somewhere between spinach and young zucchini.
Tenerumi are sold in bunches (this is what that looks like), usually enough to feed an entire family.
The way I cook it
Since I’m on my own, I always have to prepare them in a way that works for freezing. You can simply blanch them, but I don’t really do that anymore. In the end, I always turn them into pasta coi tenerumi e cucuzza — or something very close to it.
On Sicily, this is a light summer dish, but I personally like a bit more body to it. So I let more of the cooking liquid reduce than is traditionally done. And I probably also add a bit more cheese than any Sicilian would approve of.
Unlike the traditional recipe, I only break the spaghetti in half, whereas in Sicily they usually use shorter broken pieces.
In the video below you can see how it’s traditionally done.
Sometimes a summer evening doesn’t start with a plan, but with whatever ends up in the pan.
A dish that’s basically a one-pot meal
Pasta with tenerumi is traditionally a one-pot dish (you can see that here). I’d honestly recommend making it that way, because the flavours really soak into the pasta.
But since I can’t eat it all at once, and I like my pasta to stay properly al dente, I do it a bit differently:
I make the sauce separately and freeze it in portions
I cook the pasta fresh when I’m ready to eat
If you freeze pasta already mixed into the sauce, it turns too soft when reheated.
Freezing the sauce in portions actually turns out to be a bonus. It means:
you can make a larger batch in one go
you always have a quick meal ready
it’s healthy and budget-friendly
and above all: it’s just really, really good
No tenerumi? No problem.
Before you start thinking: I don’t have any of this, let alone Sicilian squash or tenerumi…
No problem.
You can easily replace tenerumi with spinach. And instead of Sicilian long squash, just use any courgette (zucchini) you can find.
Now, Sicilians might not love me for saying that, but to me this is actually a nice way of introducing cucina povera: the Sicilian way of cooking that turns simplicity into something special.
Pasta with spinach and courgette (Sicilian style)
Ingredients (serves 4)
2 medium courgettes (zucchini)
200–250 g fresh spinach
200–300 g pasta (preferably spaghetti broken into pieces)
2–3 ripe tomatoes (or 1 can of peeled tomatoes)
2 cloves garlic
extra virgin olive oil
salt and black pepper
optional: pecorino or another hard cheese
Method
1. Build the base
Gently sauté the garlic in olive oil. Add the tomatoes and let them simmer for 5–10 minutes until you have a simple sauce.
2. Add the courgette
Cut the courgettes into half-moons or small cubes.
Add them to the sauce with a splash of water.
Let them cook gently for 10–12 minutes until they start to “melt” into the sauce.
3. Add the spinach
Add the spinach in batches and let it wilt into the sauce (this only takes 2–3 minutes).
4. Cook the pasta in the sauce
Add water until you get a loose, almost soup-like sauce.
Add the broken pasta directly into the pan.
Cook, stirring regularly, until the pasta is al dente.
Add more water if needed.
5. Finish
Season with salt, black pepper, and a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil.
Serve with cheese if you like.
On an evening like that
You’ll want to eat this on an evening when the air is still warm and the table somehow ends up outside on its own. This is the kind of food you naturally bring outdoors without thinking, while the day slowly fades into night.
With a glass of fresh, dry white wine on the side — something like a Pinot Grigio — it just works. Nothing heavy, nothing complicated, just something that makes the summer evening last a little longer.
What do you usually cook on evenings like that?
Do you also end up leaning towards simple dishes like this when it gets warm outside?
And what are your own go-to summer meals?
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