Embracing the broccoli stalk for his spaghetti recipe, Jamie Oliver assured: “It’s just as delicious as florets – trust me.”
The chef even uses up stale bread and turns the pieces into “golden and crunchy breadcrumbs”.
“Here I’m embracing ingredients that are often wasted,” the British chef explained.
For the main part of his spaghetti dish, Jamie Oliver likes to add tinned mackerel, which is rich in healthy fats, omega-3 and omega-6.
Better still, his tasty and healthy spaghetti recipe is “on the table in minutes” – here’s how to make it.
Mackerel spaghetti recipe
Ingredients
- One slice of stale thick white bread
- Olive oil
- Half a head of broccoli
- Two cloves of garlic
- Half a lemon
- 150g dried spaghetti
- Half teaspoon dried chilli flakes
- 125g tin of mackerel in tomato sauce
- 30g mature Cheddar cheese
Method
Heat up one tablespoon of olive oil in a large, non-stick frying pan (on medium-high heat) while roughly chopping up a slice of stale bread. Add the chopped stale bread into the hot frying pain and cook for three minutes, or until crispy. Set aside.
Chop the broccoli, remove the tough end of the stalk and finely slice the remaining stalk. Peel and finely slice the garlic, then grate the lemon zest and put all aside for later.
While the pasta is cooking according to pack instructions in boiling salted water, add the broccoli florets in the final two minutes of cooking. Once cooked, drain, but reserve a mug of pasta water.
On medium heat, add two teaspoons of olive oil to the frying pan; once hot, add the chilli and broccoli stalk, and cook for five minutes. You can add splashes of pasta water.
Add garlic, cook for a minute, then add in the mackerel. Break up with the fish with a wooden spoon and add a tin’s worth of starchy pasta water. Simmer for two minutes. Now add the pasta to the dish. Toss everything together.
Off the heat, finely grate in the cheese, add a squeeze of lemon juice, and season with black pepper and salt. Divide between plates, sprinkling over the crispy breadcrumbs and the reserved lemon zest, to serve.
