Pasta with yoghurt and nuts, and a pickled cabbage salad recipe

Serves 

by · The Telegraph

This is adapted from Summer Kitchens by the brilliant Ukrainian food writer Olia Hercules. The wonderfully tangy yoghurt and garlic sauce tends to be used as a topping for little homemade Tatar pasta bows. I’ve tossed it through spaghetti here and used toasted pine nuts rather than the recommended walnuts (only because I’m allergic to walnuts; feel free to use them instead!).

Hercules, along with Russian food writer Alissa Timoshkina, has set up an initiative called Cook For Ukraine, designed to raise money to aid children and families in Ukraine who have been displaced. They are encouraging people to cook Ukrainian food and share the pictures on social media using the hashtag #CookForUkraine, or host a dinner or bake sale to raise money. They have a Just Giving page (justgiving.com/fundraising/cookforukraine) and are channelling all funds to Unicef UK’s Ukrainian appeal.

Timings

Prep: 15 minutes

Cook: 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the cabbage

  • 1 tsp honey
  • 2 tbsp cider vinegar
  • ½ a small sweetheart cabbage
  • A drizzle of nutty oil

For the pasta

  • 200g pasta
  • 150ml full fat yoghurt
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
  • 2 tbsp pine nuts
  • 100g unsalted butter

Method

  1. If you’re going to eat these together, start by making the salad. Whisk the honey into the cider vinegar in a large bowl with about a dessertspoonful of coarse salt.
  2. Remove any particularly tough stems from the cabbage and slice each leaf thinly. I do this by rolling each leaf and then slicing along it. Put the cabbage in the vinegar bowl, toss and leave to sit while you do everything else.
  3. Set a large pan of well-salted water on to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente, drain and reserve some cooking water when you do.
  4. While the pasta is cooking, mix the yoghurt and garlic with a big pinch of salt.
  5. Set a small frying pan over a low-medium heat and toast the pine nuts until lightly golden. Tumble them onto a plate. Use the same pan to melt the butter, letting it bubble and brown a little (though watch it doesn’t burn).
  6. When the pasta is cooked, return it to the pan with the reserved pasta water and toss with the melted butter so that it’s well coated. Finally, stir through the garlicky yoghurt.
  7. To serve, toss a little oil through the cabbage, and sprinkle pine nuts over each bowl of yoghurt pasta.