Well-intentioned people spent years telling us, quite rightly, that we should be eating seasonally but now between climate change and inflation and the insistence on growing and selling us out-of-season food anyway, I’m not sure seasons even exist meaningfully anymore, not least culinarily. Which is why I’m making this kind of flagrantly summery recipe for pasta with fried marinated zucchini in the middle of winter because, I don’t know, the in-season food isn’t any cheaper nor better quality.

I’m also making it because it’s delicious but you know I can never miss an opportunity to pitch stentorian wrath towards the supermarket duopoly! And they certainly keep me rich in such opportunities (if not in seasonal produce.)

The recipe title might imply that great lengths of lead time are involved but it’s less of a marinade and more of a vinegary waiting room, an acidic lobby where the fried zucchini slices briefly sit en route to the pasta. In that brief time, however, you achieve a terrific push-pull between sour and oily; the zucchini’s near-saturated cells obligingly doing their best to absorb more liquid, the rich, nuttily brown exterior and collapsingly tangy interior — all in the time it takes for the pasta to cook. The cool, misty mint provides a calm descant, the pine nuts offer muted glamour, and the sultanas — look, you don’t have to include them but adding a swollen note of sweetness to the sour/salty/oily proceedings doesn’t not make sense, besides which I lifted that from a Nigella recipe if my recommendation alone isn’t validating enough.

This is one of those rather delicate and un-hearty pasta recipes as opposed, say, to a spag bol; the pine nuts are the only real source of protein but rather than add to this I would instead suggest making something else to serve either alongside or afterwards. Zucchini — and I realise we usually call them courgettes here but it just feels right for this recipe — are, like literally everything else in this world, not exactly cheap per kilo but while I’ve suggested one per person, with judicious slicing you could definitely split one between two. You can also use regular pasta over the flouncy telephone cords I’ve gone for but there is something about a dinky pasta shape that makes even the plainest arrangement seem banquet-like. And this does — beckoning to mind recognisable summers past, and elegant in its resolute simplicity.

I can also recommend this Roasted Zucchini with Spinach Peanut Pesto; and for more delicate minimalist pasta recipes, there’s my Lemon Vodka Pasta and Nigella’s Pasta with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms.

Pasta with Fried Marinated Zucchini

This sounds more involved than it is – just a brief dunk in vinegar imbues the fried zucchini slices with lively energy. It’s elegant, summery and simple. Recipe by myself, although inspired by Nigella’s courgette pasta with sultanas and pine nuts from Forever Summer and Italian zucchini alla scapece.

• 2 zucchini/courgettes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 200g short pasta
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts
• 10g (about a handful) fresh mint leaves
• salt for the pasta water and for seasoning
• 3 tablespoons sultanas (optional)
• 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, for serving

1: Slice the zucchini into 1/2cm coins (or thereabouts) and, if you have the energy, sit these slices on a couple of paper towels with more paper towels on top to remove some excess moisture before frying. Heat the three tablespoons of olive oil in a wide, heavy frying pan, and while you’re at it, bring a large pan of water to the boil for the pasta.

2: Once the water has come to the boil, salt it generously and cook the 200g pasta for about ten minutes until al dente. Meanwhile, back to the zucchini – once the oil in the pan is hot, fry the zucchini slices in a single layer, turning once the undersides are deeply browned. Remove the finished zucchini and place in a shallow bowl, and pour over the three tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Continue frying the remaining zucchini slices in the same manner, transferring them to the bowl of vinegar once cooked, giving them a bit of a stir (or swirl the bowl) to make sure everyone gets a go at the vinegar.

3: Once you’ve fried all the zucchini slices, take the pan off the heat, finely chop the two garlic cloves, and warm them through in the pan’s residual heat. Stir this garlic into the zucchini and vinegar.

4: In the same pan, still with the heat turned off, lightly warm through the three tablespoons of pine nuts. That being said, if your stovetop doesn’t hold its heat ferociously like mine, you can always turn it back up again. Either way, once the pine nuts start to become golden and fragrant, remove them from the pan and set aside.

5: By this point your pasta should be tender. Tip the three tablespoons of sultanas into the pan of pasta, just so they can swell up and absorb some of the cooking water, then drain the pasta and sultanas and stir in the fried zucchini slices, letting them strew droplets of vinegar and bits of garlic through the pasta where they will. To be clear, you’re leaving most of the vinegar behind in the bowl, though if you’re an absolute vinegar fiend then by all means pour some in. Roughly chop most of the mint leaves and stir them in along with most of the pine nuts, drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle over plenty of salt.

Divide between two plates and scatter with the remaining pine nuts and more mint, in whole-leaf form.

Serves 2, although if you need to make more then add one zucchini, 100g pasta, and one tablespoon pine nuts per person.

music lately:

Sedan Delivery, by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, I can never choose whether I prefer hectic or pensive Neil Young best — and why should I! — but this one is fantastically unruly, the kind of song that makes you want to kick a rock through the window a municipal building.

Something’s Coming from West Side Story as interpreted by the Oscar Peterson Trio, society really lost its way when we stopped having jazz musicians record their own versions of Broadway musicals.

Hot Pink, by the Meat Puppets, they confusingly have two tracks bearing this name, this is the one that feels like you’re pleasantly sharing a washing machine spin cycle with a child’s toy pre-set keyboard and several guitars.

Planet of the Bass by DJ Crazy Times and Ms Biljana Electronica. It’s an extended bit, a content creator parody which is generally the most cursed genre, but are my ears supposed to be immune to brilliance? As someone who grew up bopping to Sash and Real McCoy, this song went from being mildly amusing and recognisable to an inescapable part of my brain, and the full version of the minute-long tiktok is genuinely impressive. That being said I urge you to watch the short tiktok version first; despite varying accuracy, it’s genius lightning in a stupid bottle; then the full version, I don’t think they can be truly appreciated the other way around (I did see one tweet describing this as post-verbal so it’s not just me hyperventilating here.)