Here's a dish that makes you hungry just imagining it, as is happening to us who write the recipe, spaghetti with creamy beetroot sauce and anchovies, chilli pepper and chopped almonds. At this point you're probably already looking at the recipe and wondering if you have all the ingredients at home, but read a couple more lines, we want to explain that this recipe is not only tasty but also packed with health properties. Wholemeal spaghetti helps control blood sugar and provides long-term energy, while beetroot fights free radicals, is anticancer and cardioprotective, helping to reduce bad LDL cholesterol and blood pressure (Chen et al, Food Sci Nutr, 2021 ). Finally, almonds provide valuable antioxidants and act as prebiotics, namely capable of supporting the intestinal microbiota by promoting the proliferation of good and anti-inflammatory bacteria (Liu et al, J Sci Food Agric, 2016).
Ingredients
320 grams of whole durum wheat spaghetti
2 large red beetroots, already cooked
1 clove of garlic
4 anchovy fillets in oil
Almonds
Extra virgin olive oil
Pink Himalayan salt
Fresh chili pepper
Cut the garlic into slices and brown it in a pan with extra virgin olive oil. Remove the pan from the heat, add the anchovy fillets cut into pieces and let them melt, mix. Put the pan back on the heat and add the beetroot cut into coarse pieces, sauté for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Blend everything with the hand blender. Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water and drain it al dente. Pour the pasta into the pan with the sauce, add a ladle of cooking water and cook over low heat for a minute, stirring frequently. Distribute on plates, add a few slices of chilli pepper and the almonds, chopped with a knife. If you wish, you can also quickly sauté the whole almonds in a pan for a couple of minutes over high heat. Let them cool down and then chop the almonds. In this way the almonds become pleasantly crunchy and fragrant even if they slightly lose their prebiotic and antioxidant action.
