I not often cook dinner from recipes. It is not owing to a lack of desire—it’s a lot more a make a difference of time and vitality. Just after a lengthy day of cooking, tasting, and imagining about food, I seldom want to clean up my kitchen only to make a whole new, good recipe. (I want to consume snacks, which is what I typically do for supper.)

But I recently manufactured it a point to test the Smitten Kitchen area zucchini butter spaghetti, not only simply because The Kitchn experienced effectively proclaimed it the “dish of the summer season,” but for the reason that I rely on Deb Perelman implicitly, and I have a continual source of backyard garden-fresh new zucchini.

It ruled. It carries on to rule. I have not stopped wondering about it since I produced it. It is all the things you want in a weeknight evening meal: Quickly, flavorful, and not at all finicky. As an alternative of salting and draining the zucchini—which is typically a large portion of any recipe that capabilities the inexperienced squash—Deb shreds them, then cooks them down right until the h2o evaporates, leaving at the rear of a concentrated savory zucchini “jam.” The jam is loosened and emulsified with a very little pasta drinking water (and sprinkled with cheese), and then tossed with spaghetti and clean basil if you have it (I did not).

It is, as I have currently talked about, a extremely superior recipe, but the strategy of cooking a vegetable down to a in the vicinity of paste and then tossing it with pasta is helpful past zucchini. Andrew Zimmern would make a similar dish with broccoli, and I—as of past night—make a banging version with cucumber.

Cucumbers are similar to zucchini in form and shade, but the previous is a melon and the latter is a squash. Both are technically fruits, but are eaten as greens but cooked zucchini is significantly much more frequent than cooked cucumber, at the very least in the United States. (Grilled cucumbers go challenging, even so.)

This cucumber butter pasta is extremely very similar to Deb’s zucchini butter spaghetti, only it’s a tiny fruitier, and a minor sweeter, with a trace of vegetal cucumber peel taste (kind of like you get from extravagant “spa water”). It’s savory, frivolously sweet, and totally fantastic—a terrific way to use up 3 medium-sized cucumbers, if which is a place you discover by yourself in. You can insert parm, fresh herbs, red pepper flakes, or freshly floor pepper if you like, but none of these things are strictly required. You can also swap out the butter for olive oil if you’d like to make it vegan. To make it, you will have to have:

• 3 medium cucumbers (about 1 1/3 kilos)
• 5 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 6 tablespoons of salted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt (double if working with unsalted butter)
• 8 ounces pasta of your alternative
• Optional: Freshly shredded basil, a teaspoon or so of purple pepper flakes, clean pepper, microplaned Parmesan cheese

Coarsely shred the cucumbers and set them aside, then mince the garlic. Include the butter to a massive sauté pan more than medium-low heat, and set a inventory pot crammed with 6 cups of salted water around higher heat. Insert the garlic to the melted butter and prepare dinner right until golden and fragrant add pepper flakes if using, then insert the cucumber, and increase the heat to medium. Add the pasta as soon as the h2o starts off boiling.

Things will get very damp for a whilst, but that is excellent. Not only does all that h2o keep the garlic from burning, but it eventually leaves the pan solely, letting the cucumbers cut down down into a concentrated mass of taste.

Once the pasta is about a person moment shy of becoming perfectly al dente, reserve a cup of pasta h2o, then drain the pasta, and set it apart. Enable the cucumbers cook dinner until eventually they choose on a spread-like regularity. You will nonetheless see a very little eco-friendly liquid pooling here and there, but that’s fats from the butter, and it will seem quite unique than thin, steaming h2o.

Incorporate about a quarter cup of the pasta drinking water to the cucumber, and stir with a wooden spoon to scrape up any browned bits that are trapped to the pan. Insert the pasta, then one more 1/4 cup of pasta h2o, and stir and cook more than medium heat right until the pasta is flawlessly al dente and the cucumber is evenly distributed. Include some cheese if you like, or basil, or pepper, and stir again prior to serving (it’s possible with extra cheese).