Spicy Chorizo Zucchini Pappardele

I post pics of my cooking all the time on Instagram, so I figured I should start blogging about my recipes and such. Today’s experiment is a paleo-esque take on a traditional Pappardele pasta dish. This recipe is very improvised, so feel free to adjust to your preferences. I usually cook for myself or one other, so quantities are usually enough for me to have left overs.

If you adhere to paleo or slow-carb/4hour body diets, this should fit the bill. You can substitute other sausages for the chorizo, but I like the red color the chorizo spices infuse in the rest of the ingredients. I served this with a side green salad of mixed spinach and greens. I could see this going well with something light, but nothing heavy.

Ingredients

• Chorizo – 2
• Zucchini – 1 large, or 2 Medium
• Jalapeño Pepper – 2 small ones
• Shiitake mushroom – a couple handfuls
• Garlic – 2-3 cloves (I love garlic)
• Basil – teaspoon
• Green Onions – 2 diced
• Coconut Oil or Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper

Tools you’ll need:

• Frying pan
• Wooden spoon
• Strainer
• Stove
• Knife for chopping
• Cutting Board
• Potato Peeler

1. Prep: The mise en place – Wash the onions, jalapeños, mushrooms, and zucchini and dry in your strainer.
   Chop the garlic, onions, jalapeños, and mushrooms. Remove the seeds from the jalapeño unless you want it to be super spicy. Set aside.
   
2. Prep: Making the “noodles”: using your knife, cut off the ends of the zucchini. Using your potato peeler create ribbons from your zucchini length wise.

   

3. Prep: the chorizo: Take a knife and run it along the casing, then remove the chorizo from the casing. Chop the chorizo into smaller chunks, so they cook faster and more evenly.
   

1. Cook: Start by adding oil to your pan, heating it over medium heat. Add your garlic too.
2. Cook: After the garlic has warmed up, add your jalapeños and mushrooms. Let them cook for a few minutes. The mushrooms will absorb a lot of the moisture in the pan. So don’t worry about that though.

   

3. Cook: After your mushrooms and jalapeños are soft, add the chorizo. Do not add more oil to the pan, as there is plenty of fat in the chorizo which will render out and keep the pan lubricated.

   

4. Cook: When your chorizo is cooked through, add in your green onions.
5. Cook: Add your zucchini noodles. We’re only going to cook these for 1 minute, 2 minutes max, otherwise they will get too mushy. Effectively you want to be tossing them in the pan so they absorb all the flavors.
   
6. Next up, plating and serving!