Having emerged this week from major dental surgery into recuperation mode, I am finally afforded some time to write this blog post. I am also, unfortunately, still firmly quagmired in the soft-food-only stage for another couple days so the act of crunching or chewing anything is but a poignant memory. Which perhaps will add a yearning piquancy to my description of this pappardelle with roasted carrots, hazelnuts and dill. I was joking with a best friend that I shouldn’t be this excited to have ‘me time’ via major surgery, but such is modern life! This anticipation also distracted from fear of the real and present risk of permanent nerve damage, which, I am relieved to inform you, didn’t come to pass. One day I shall enjoy this pasta again. Luckily for you—although I assume everyone cool is probably also suffering dentally in some regard, there’s a lot of crossover—it’s so quick to make, that you could enjoy it within about half an hour if you hop to it.

In the previous recipe for carrot granola muffins I urged you to include hazelnuts; while musing upon this combination, along with the perennial affordability of carrots, this recipe appeared in my head. To be fair, a fried or roasted carrot is never far from my mind. The process of applying scorching heat to a carrot stick shifts this vegetable firmly from ensemble player to above-the-title main character; transforming it from freshly ascetic and abruptly crunchy to glossily rich and nutty and fulsome. I simply cannot tire of it, of the flavour and the versatility and the transformation itself, cooking really is one magic trick after another.

Alongside the woody, almost-cocoa crunch (she says, with a sigh) of hazelnuts, themselves roasted into further richness, these carrots become even more opulent. (And although I mention it in the recipe, I feel the need to add again that I prefer this recipe with chopped hazelnuts, even though the whole ones in the photos look splendid; this is what happens when I photograph the first run of a recipe.)

Let us sidestep from carrots to briefly consider dill. When so few ingredients are listed, each one becomes that much more crucial; dill is no exception. For reasons I can’t pinpoint (a vague suspicion of American recipes’ preoccupation with it, perhaps?) dill has never had a significant presence on this blog. Of late, I’m backtracking enthusiastically, with dill finding its way into damn near everything, breathing its almost-buttery, earthy grassiness into any savoury recipe. Although dill can be astringent and brusque in certain contexts—a titular pickle, for example—it can also lend an odd luxuriousness into oil-slicked, mouth-filling dishes like this pappardelle. It’s an important bridge between the sweetness and nuttiness of the hazelnuts and carrots both; it makes the dish feel whole and the ingredients connected.

(That being said, don’t skip the fresh pepper at the end, which really makes everything make sense.)

This is, demonstrably, an immensely simple and unadorned dish, though elegant due to the wide-hipped pappardelle ribbons, echoed in the full-length strips of carrot. It has an air of readiness for impressing someone you want to impress, despite its something-from-nothing ingredients—one of my favourite genres of recipe. It tastes like abundance, but it doesn’t ask it of you.

If you’re after more atypically elegant pasta, I recommend my pappardelle with calamari, corn and mascarpone; pasta with harissa, beans and feta; pappardelle with fennel and bean escabeche; and lemon vodka pasta.

Pappardelle with roasted carrots, hazelnuts and dill

An unostentatious yet elegant—and very easy—pasta dish. Don’t skip the black pepper, it brings it all together. As always, before shopping for these or any ingredients, I recommend checking out the Boycott Aotearoa zines so you know which brands to avoid. Recipe by myself.

• 3-4 carrots—size isn’t crucial, if they’re larger: you’ll have more
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 300g fresh pappardelle, or 200g dried (see notes)
• Salt, for the pasta water and seasoning
• 70g hazelnuts
• 20g fresh dill
• Freshly cracked black pepper

1: First, set your oven to 200C/400F. Trim the ends of the three carrots, and slice into long strips, across the whole length—as in, you don’t halve the carrots across their middle before slicing, but it can be easier to half the carrots lengthwise before slicing further, if that makes sense. Toss in a shallow roasting dish with the three tablespoons of olive oil and bake for 20 minutes, or until the carrots are tender with a little browning around the edges of some pieces.

2: While the carrots are in the oven, boil a large pan of water for the pasta (I boil a kettle of water first, which feels faster, though may not be) and add a good-sized pinch of salt. Roughly chop the 70g hazelnuts.

3: Tip the chopped hazelnuts into the roasting dish with the carrots, and let them sit in the oven for another three minutes, then turn off the heat and remove the tray from the oven. Meanwhile, add the 300g pappardelle to the boiling water and let it bubble away until cooked through—which should be the exact same amount of time.

4: Drain the pasta, swiping a small cupful of the water first. Stir the roasted carrots and hazelnuts into the pasta, letting as much of the olive oil from the roasting dish drip in, along with a little more salt to taste and a splash of pasta water if you feel it needs it. Finely chop up the 20g dill—including the stems—and stir through the pasta. Add a few sturdy twists of black pepper, stir again and you’re done.

Serves 2.

Notes:

• If using dried pappardelle, you’ll need to get it into the boiling water about five minutes after the carrots have started roasting cooking—I’d get the water on the boil while you’re slicing up the carrots.
• If you can’t find pappardelle, what I regularly do is get fresh lasagne sheets and slice them up into wide lengths. That being said, I veered a little too wide for the pasta in these photos, at the expense of forkability.
• I’ve made this with an enlivening splash of red wine vinegar and it was very good, but I prefer it without.
• If you can’t get them, or prefer otherwise, you could replace the hazelnuts with pecans or pine nuts, but there must be something.
• To that end—the hazelnuts look lovely whole and untampered with, but they’re a bit annoying to chase around with your fork, hence why the instructions and the photos differ.

what I’ve been listening to lately:

I Have the Moon by Lush, who, like roasted carrots, are never far from my mind; having rewatched Gregg Araki’s Nowhere last night however this particular song—with its nudged-by-waves twinkly floatiness and comfort-giving lyrics—is now particularly looping in my ears.

Winona by Drop Nineteens, the wistful and wise lyrics juuust bust through the scuzziness of the washing-machine guitar riffs to make you, too, feel wistful and wise.  

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach; arranged by Leopold Stokowski. As described in Fantasia—which I also recently rewatched—it’s music for its own sake, telling no story, and yet it’s impossible to not feel transported along some kind of narrative, even if that narrative is simply you gasping in wonderment at how this might be one of the most glorious pieces of music ever composed; from the imposing strings that open it, giving way to capricious droplets of harp, culminating in that soaring, light-beam ending.

PS: Feeling hopeless is a luxury that serves no one but those perpetrating the hopelessness, despite the hopelessness being accelerated beyond comprehension daily. The people of Palestine need us now more than ever and among others, you can support:

• ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal, who are connected with teams on the ground in Gaza.
• Convoys of Good, another registered NZ charity distributing aid.
• As I’ve already mentioned, you can also demonstrate your control and power through the absence of your dollars. Boycott Zine Aotearoa has helpfully put together two comprehensive free zines so you can quickly see who to studiously avoid when buying food, drinks, household items and beauty products.
• You can also check out the Pro-Palestine Business Aotearoa account by the same people for a very solid list of places to actively focus your consumer attention on.