Courgetti with Pesto

This is an awesomely good way to eat zucchini, which the Brits call courgette.  You spiralize and saute the squash, which then looks like spaghetti, hence courgetti.  Some people call it zudles.

To make it, you need a zucchini and some pesto:

To make the pesto, you need fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and either Parmesan or Romano cheese:

Put a bunch of basil, a couple of peeled garlic cloves and 1/4 cup or so of pine nuts into a food processor until evenly chopped up, then drizzle in 1/3 cup or so of olive oil with the food processor running until you get a smooth paste. Then put that in a bowl and fold in a cup or so of the grated cheese:

Then you spiralize the zucchini:

Then sauté it in olive oil for 2-3 minutes...don't cook it too long or it will release water and become a soggy mess:

Then add pesto to pan, stir and plate.  How much you add depends on how much courgetti you have and how much you like pesto.  For me, one batch of pesto based on one bunch of basil will be enough for two medium size zucchini.  The batch in the picture below has more pesto than the batch in the picture with the egg.  Just a matter of taste.  If I am making this for myself, I would just use one zucchini and half (or less) of the pesto.  Plenty of other uses for leftover pesto, including more courgetti.

Now you could stop there and have a great meal, but I like to add a poached egg on top. To do that (from Food Lab), bring a pan of salted water to a boil. Crack an egg into a fine sieve over a bowl (this will separate the loose white common in old eggs), lower the heat of the boiling water to low, tip the sieved egg into the pot of just boiled water and poach for 4 minutes, gently stirring the water every so often. You can do this at the same time as you are sautéing the courgetti. After 4 minutes take the egg out of the water with a slotted spoon and nestle on top of the plated courgetti:

This is a 10 minute meal from start to first bite.   Really.  I've timed myself.  I do the pesto first (about 5 minutes) while putting on water to boil. The spiralizing of the courgetti takes about a minute. The poaching of the egg and the simultaneous sautéing of the courgetti takes about 4 minutes. So, 5+1+4=10.  If you saute the pine nuts for a minute in a little olive oil before putting them in the food processor with the basil and the garlic, it punches up their flavor.  That would add another minute, but who's counting?

This is so good that I have stopped eating pasta, at least while the good local zucchini and fresh basil lasts.