Cooking & Entertaining > Italian Cuisine

PENNE ITALIANO

Ingredients:

350g dried penne (quills) 
salt and freshly ground black pepper 
a good knob of butter 
2 large cloves garlic crushed 
225g small chestnut mushrooms sliced
300m1 double cream 
juice of 1/2 lemon 
75g fresh spinach washed trimmed and shredded 
75g blue stilton cheese grated 
a good grating of nutmeg

Method:

Add the pasta to a large pan of boiling salted water. Bring to the boil on the boiling plate then cover and cook on the simmering plate for 12 minutes until al dente. Drain and set to one side.

Melt the butter in a large deep nonstick frying pan on the boiling plate add the garlic and cook for a few moments. Add the mushrooms and allow to cook on the simmering plate for a couple of minutes.  Stir in the cream and allow to boil until coating consistency.

Add the cooked pasta to the mushrooms and cream and stir well. Mix in the lemon juice spinach and stilton and season with nutmeg and pepper. Stir well. 

Serve with a tossed green salad.

It is best to use fresh young spinach which you mix in at the end of cooking. No extra salt is needed as stilton is a salty cheese.

Serves: 4