- 3/4 cup Mushroom Ham
- 1/3 cup Garlic Confit
- 2 to 3 Vegan Mozzarella balls (depending on size)
- 1/4 cup Roasted Garlic-Onion Buttah (per person)
- 3/4 cup Parsley Pesto
- 2 cups Roasted Cauliflower (approx. 1/2 cauliflower)
To start, first prepare all of the following recipes, if you don’t already have them on hand:
Mushroom ‘Ham’
Garlic Confit
Vegan Mozzarella
Roasted Garlic-Onion Buttah
Parsley Pesto
For the Roasted Cauliflower, wait until the pasta is almost done before you roast it in the oven. See images above for how we cut and seasoned the cauliflower.
- 1 - 500 gr pkg pasta, such as casarecce
- sea salt, to taste
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- chile flakes, to taste
To start, preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
To cook the pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil and then season generously with salt. The water should just taste a bit salty.
Next, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Once the pasta is almost done, place the cauliflower into the oven and roast until it has just barely cooked through and started to turn golden brown underneath — approximately 6 to 8 minutes.
Once the pasta has cooked, save some pasta water, and then drain the pasta.
At this point, everything should be ready so you can now assemble the pasta. To do this, place the pasta into a bowl and then add about 1/2 a cup of the pesto and stir to evenly coat the pasta in the pesto. If needed, add a bit more pesto. It’s not super garlicky or strong so you can be quite generous with it.
Next, gently fold in some of the ‘ham’, garlic confit, torn ‘mozzarella’ balls, and roasted cauliflower. Taste for seasoning, add a bit of fleur de sel (finishing salt) and freshly ground black pepper, as desired. For a bit of heat, add a few pinches of chile flakes (or save them for garnish).
To finish the dish, place a dollop of the roasted garlic-onion buttah onto the bottom of each plate and then place the pasta on top and serve immediately.
Want to make this ahead of time but not sure how? Don’t worry, we got you!
To make this how they would in a restaurant, simply have all of the components ready ahead of time but don’t combine them. For the pasta, cook it until it is just a bit less than al dente. Once it’s done, drain it and then lightly oil it and spread it out onto a baking tray to cool as quickly as possible. Once the pasta has completely cooled, place it into a container and cover until you are ready to use it.
For the cauliflower, it can also be done ahead of time, or it can be the one thing that you cook fresh so it’s perfectly cooked and nice and hot.
Once you are ready to serve the pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil and then add the pasta — you can either heat it all up at once or just heat up one or two portions at a time if that’s all you are planning to serve.
As soon as the pasta is hot and cooked to your liking (al dente), drain it and then follow the instructions as usual.