I used frozen spinach and a greater proportion of it based on comments on the blog (increased garlic confit accordingly).
The flavor of the spinach “sauce” was just flat. I could taste the roasted garlic when I was tasting the sauce, but it did not seem enough for the pasta portion.
So. I added more garlic, a few splashes of red wine vinegar (which really helped), and calabrian chile paste at the end (I couldn’t taste the red pepper flakes, and black pepper was incongruous) which faded into the background but gave a nice flavor and slight heat.
The purée timing doesn’t work with angel hair, so I used plain water and made the sauce first. Cooked the purée in a nonstick pan to meld flavors while the capellini cooked, then added the pasta with splashes of pasta water to loosen.
Pecorino melted in and couldn’t be tasted against the spinach, so I think it would be better with ricotta salata or feta (there’s feta in the the Turshen version, which might make it reminiscent of spanakopita in a good way, as fresh ricotta might of palak paneer, but fresh ricotta wouldn’t be salty enough).
And instead of using all the butter/oil from the confit in the sauce while blending, I drizzled some over at the end, so it could be tasted more clearly.
So, lots of (minor) changes to make it palatable to me, but the end outcome was tasty and I’d make my version again.
