Roast Pumpkin & Sage Pasta Sauce

Photo courtesy of The Pasta Place

We recently, during one of our wanders through the city, ended up having dinner at a small, newly opened Italian-American restaurant in the Sheung Wan area where we met the dynamic mother and daughter duo who run The Pasta Place.  These ladies really mean it when they say created and run by mother and daughter because everything in that place has their collaborative fingerprints on it, from the retro wallpaper to all the food (made from mamma's own recipes!) on the menu.  We naturally got to chatting with Andrea (the mamma) about her homemade style food, as we at The Hong Kong Cookery obviously think that homemade is cooler than cool!  And Andrea was nice enough to let us have one of her own recipes to share with our readers...

So without further ado, here is mamma Andrea's own recipe for homemade Roast Pumpkin and Sage Pasta Sauce.  Figlia Charlotte advises that this pasta sauce can be put with all sorts of different kind of pasta but is particularly yummy with stuffed Ravioli or Rigatoni. (She should know, she grew up eating it!)  And be sure to check out the original pasta dish and and say hello to Andrea and Charlotte at The Pasta Place if you find yourself out and about in Sheung Wan some fine day soon!

Roast Pumpkin & Sage Pasta Sauce Recipe

(Serves 4)

1 tsp olive oil 

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

425g pumpkin puree

50g/2oz parmesan, grated

Pinch of chili flakes 

Zest of 1 lemon 

25g/1oz butter 

85g/ 3oz fresh breadcrumbs 

2 tbsp chopped sage and whole sage leaves for garnish. 

Heat oil in a pan and fry onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add the pumpkin puree, 250ml water, grated parmesan, chili flakes and lemon zest. Stir well  and cook over a low heat for 3-4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. 

Melt the butter in a small frying pan, stir in breadcrumbs and fry until lightly golden.  Stir in the chopped sage leaves. 

Serve pasta with pumpkin sauce, sprinkle with the toasted sage breadcrumbs and garnish with crispy fried sage leaves.

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