Cougette Carbonara - Comfort with a Twist

There are some days when I long for some comfort food. After the long, rainy week we’ve had (which, incidentally, I’ve spent working very hard catering in the North of Scotland!), it’s just what I need. My ultimate comfort food is my Mum’s spaghetti Carbonara. It’s not the traditional Italian recipe – we add cream and white wine.

Totally traditional Italian spaghetti Carbonara just uses eggs; bacon or pancetta; a hard cheese like parmesan or pecorino; and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. In fact, on a family holiday to Italy a few years ago, I mentioned to a local lady that I needed some cream because I was making Carbonara for my family that evening, and she was horrified!

Nevertheless, I’m not ashamed to say that I love a bit of cream in my Carbonara sauce, and even some white wine for that extra bit of flavour. This time, though, I wanted to take it even further. I felt like the comfort of Carbonara, but with a twist.

There was a courgette in the fridge, so I thought I’d inject a few vitamins into what is, let’s face it, not usually the healthiest of meals. I remembered a method of making courgette ‘spaghetti’ I learned recently, so I thought I’d try mixing the courgette stuff with the real thing. In fact, if you wanted you could even try doing the whole thing with courgette spaghetti. I think you might find it a bit squishy, though.

Then I noticed half a leftover bread roll lurking at the bottom of the bread bin and figured I’d top my concoction with toasted breadcrumbs, just to use it up. I liked the result so much I thought I’d write it down for you all.

One last note – Carbonara isn’t really a suitable dish for expectant mothers, the very old or the very young, because there’s a slight risk of the egg being undercooked. If you are cooking for any of these groups, it’s better to overheat the egg and have it scramble a bit in the sauce than to give somebody salmonella. Safety first.

And now that I’ve put you all off, on with the recipe!

Ingredients

(per person)

½ a courgette

Small handful of spaghetti (a bit less than you have of courgette)

½ a small bread roll or one piece of sliced bread

A bit of butter

2 rashers of bacon

A slosh of white wine

A bigger slosh of double cream

1 egg

Grated hard cheese such as parmesan or pecorino

Salt and plenty of ground black pepper

Recipe

First of all, get your bacon in the oven to cook until crispy. Put the bread roll in the oven at the same time, until it’s turning brown and completely dried out.

Meanwhile, you want to slice the courgette into long, thin strips about the size and length of your spaghetti. I did this with a knife, but a mandolin works even better if you have one. Set it to thin julienne and just run the courgette up and down. There are plenty to choose from here if you’re interested in one – and no, I’m not being paid by Amazon, or by a mysterious consortium of mandolin-makers. I just like mandolins!

Whiz up the bread roll in your blender or magi-mix to make breadcrumbs. If you don’t have any fancy electric gadgets, you can always wrap the bread in a bag or tea towel and give it a good bash with a rolling pin. When you’ve got some nice small breadcrumbs, fry them off quickly and gently in butter until they’re hot, brown and crispy. Remove them from the pan onto some kitchen paper to drain.

Boil some salted water for the pasta and get the spaghetti going. Once the bacon is ready, chop it into bitesize pieces. Put it in the pan you used for the breadcrumbs, get it hot, then add the wine and reduce it by about half. Add the cream and bring the mixture briefly to a simmer. Then remove it from the heat, let it cool for a few seconds, and add the egg, stirring well so that it combines into the cream mixture without becoming scrambled. The egg will be cooked by the residual heat from the pan, but it should remain liquid.

When the pasta is about a minute away from being fully cooked (when it’s just too al dente for your taste, in other words) add the courgette strips and let them boil with the pasta for the remaining minute of 30 seconds – that’s all they need to cook.

Finally, mix the pasta and courgette into the cream, egg and bacon. Season it well with salt and lots of ground black peppercorns. Plop plenty into your bowl and top with the grated parmesan and breadcrumbs, and maybe a sprinkling of chopped parsley for some extra colour. Comfort with a twist!

Five-Vegetable Pasta Sauce

Hello and welcome back, dear reader. Today, I felt an overwhelming need for vitamins - a quick-fix diet of far too many crisps has left me gasping for something green and crunchy. Solution: a dash to the shops for as many vegetables as I could carry.

This simple, chunky and fresh-tasting sauce goes well with pasta or couscous, can easily be embellished with the herbs or spices of your choice, and, if you eat enough of it, pretty much deals with any 'five-a-day' problems in one easy swoop. As an inveterate carnivore, I added some smoked bacon lardons for that meaty kick, but my vegetarian readers can easily leave these out or replace them with some tofu pieces. Vegan readers, do this and then eat with egg-free pasta or couscous. Don't be overwhelmed by the fairly lengthy list of ingredients - they all go in together very easily, and the veg will only take a few moments to chop, I promise. You can replace any of the vegetables with your own favourites, and you don't even need to stop at five!

I won't include the pasta in the recipe, but some words of advice:

Use about 3 handfuls per person; cook in plenty of boiling water, very well-salted, as directed on the pack; and drain thoroughly before using. Al dente (still with a bit of bite there when you chew it) is the way to go.

Without more ado, then, on to the sauce:

Ingredients
(serves 3-ish)

Around 50g bacon lardons or cubes of pancetta (optional)
3 large spring onions
A good-sized courgette, washed
A medium head of broccoli
A red pepper, or pointed sweet pepper
2 large tomatoes
1tsp tomato puree
1 glass white/pink wine
1 pint tomato passata (or 1 tin chopped tomatoes)
Generous splash of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
Shavings of Grana Padano/Parmesan cheese to garnish

Method

First of all, chop all of your vegetables into pieces (they don't have to be cubes - go with the natural shape of the vegetable) about 1cm square. This does mean cutting your broccoli smaller than you're probably used to, but it makes for a lovely, consistent sauce which is easy to eat.

Next, pop a good-sized frying pan with high sides on a medium heat and add the bacon pieces. You won't need oil - it's got plenty of fat in it already, which will melt as you cook it and lubricate the pan. When the bacon is beginning to brown, add the spring onions and the pepper and allow to cook for a couple more minutes. Then add the rest of the vegetables and the tomato puree, and again cook for a couple of minutes, turning gently to ensure everything is coated with oil and puree.

When all the veg is beginning to cook, add the white wine and let it bubble vigorously for a minute or two, then add the passata and balsamic vinegar. Simmer for ten minutes or so, or while you cook the pasta, then season to taste and serve on top of pasta, garnished with the shavings of cheese.

Note: if you'd like to add any herbs or spices, I suggest you add dry or ground with the onion, and anything fresh and chopped with the passata or right at the end. Some parsley mixed with the cheese shavings would be a great addition to the garnish, the bright green matching the fresh taste of the sauce.

Anyway - if you're ever feeling short of essential vitamins, you know what to do! Enjoy your daily shot of vegetables, folks.

Lemon, Bacon and Parsley Pasta

Greetings, dear followers. Back again after the usual long absence, and today, on my first evening home, I thought I'd knock together an easy supper. I'm not entirely sure where the idea for this first came from, but it combines some of my favourite ingredients. It's a dish I often turn to when the idea of pasta appeals, but a heavy cream or tomato sauce doesn't. It has the added benefit of being super-easy. And tasting good.

Ingredients
(for one)

Pasta for one - my favourite kind is fusilli, the twisty ones (named after rifle barrels, by the way), of which you need about three handfuls for a fairly generous serving. Spaghetti is next favourite, and to measure that you bunch it together in your hands and allow a bunch about the size of a one penny piece (or a little bigger) per person.
Three rashers of bacon
Olive oil
One clove of garlic
Juice of just under half a lemon
Glass, or just over, of white wine
Around a tablespoon of chopped parsley (PLEASE don't use dried, it honestly tastes like dead grass. You're better off using none if you can't get it fresh. You could substitute for a different herb as well)
A tiny splash of cream if you feel like it
Salt and pepper to season


Method

First, cook off the bacon however you like it best and set it aside to cool off a bit. If you're a veggie (or even if you're not, actually), I think pine nuts would be kind of yummy with this dish as the sauce is almost like a hot salad dressing anyway, so it builds on the 'pasta-based salad'. You can leave the bacon out, although I think it brings something nothing else really can. I also thought about the uses of halloumi cheese here - it would make the dish richer, but the lemon juice might help cut through that. If you wanted to use halloumi, you'd coat it in seasoned flour and fry it off until golden brown, then add it at the point in the recipe where the bacon goes in. 

Right, the bacon should have cooled off a bit by now, so tear it up into bitesize chunks. This is the kind of pasta you can eat with just a fork as you crouch like a praying mantis over the latest episode of Glee.


Now set some water on a high heat to boil for your pasta, with a generous pinch of salt added. While you wait for it to come to the boil, crush and finely chop the garlic and chop the parsley ready to add later. When the water's boiling, add the pasta. 


In a separate, smaller pan, put a splash of olive oil and the chopped garlic, and cook over a medium heat for a minute or two until the garlic softens and the oil begins to bubble a bit. At this point, add the lemon juice and white wine. 

Just a quick note about the lemon juice. You're about to reduce the wine, garlic and juice mixture, which will boil off some of the water and intensify all the flavours. One thing I've found is that if you add too much lemon juice, it can begin to taste too strongly sour, so go reasonably easy with that lemon half. If it does mess up on you, a good way to rectify the situation is with a spoonful of cream and judicious seasoning.


The next bit is easy: keep an eye on the pasta and the lemon and wine mix as they bubble away. You don't want the pasta to overcook or the sauce to reduce right away; if the first looks like happening, drain it; if the second, lower the heat and add a little water or a bit more wine if necessary. Once both pasta and sauce are cooked (the sauce should hopefully be ready first), drain the pasta and pop it back in the pan. Add the sauce, bacon, chopped parsley and a splash of cream if you feel like it. Stir it all in and season to taste. Instant supper. 

Ok, almost instant. 

Creamy Chicken Pasta with Caramelised Onions

First, an apology. I've dropped the ball. There has, I admit, not been a post for...yes, it might be three days. This is because I've managed to escape the grim northern wastes for a while (getting out hours before the snow closed the roads completely...) to stay with the Boyfriend, where there have been interesting things to do which have distracted me from blogging. Enough said, I think.

In addition, I will be gallivanting off for some skiing in France this week, hammering the last nail into the blackened coffin that is my overdraft, so there will be a week-long hiatus from tomorrow until next weekend. My sincere apologies to my dedicated followers. As a reward, though, for your patience, I'll write an extra-long superblog next week and tell you all about the cheap and cheerful ways I attempted to feed myself in snowy Europe, as opposed to snowy Northumberland. So at least you've all got something to look forward to.

And so to recipes. This week, I've been attempting to teach the Boyfriend to cook - and to be fair to him, he's not doing badly. His enthusiasm reminds me of me, back when I first learned to cook pasta! We made ourselves supper one night this week, nothing too sophisticated but just a bit yummy nevertheless.

A bit of a note on shopping - I've found that student shopping always ends up more expensive than you'd expect, even if you're trying to save. My theory on this is that a lot of students end up having to buy things like flour, spices, tinned tomatoes, pasta and so on which the average family house might expect to have in their store-cupboard. If you're a student or trying to save money, I'd remind you that dry goods keep for a long time in your cupboard, so if you do a big 'store' shop at the beginning of the term or the year, you might end up saving more in the long run, especially if you try to pick your recipes based on what you've got in your cupboard.

Also on shopping - I had to look around a bit, but eventually I did find some free-range chicken breasts, which worked out about a pound more expensive than the battery ones. To my mind, it's really worth the money, because if you're going to kill and eat a chicken you ought at least to make sure the bird has had a decent life first. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done a lot in this direction. Of course, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it, but you might want to have a bit of a think about where you stand.

Boyfriend and I used chicken breasts with the skin on and pan-fried them (the skin keeps them moist and stops them from burning before they're cooked through). We ate them whole, but after eating our supper we decided the dish might be nicer if you chopped the chicken fairly small, cooked it off, and mixed it with the pasta just before eating.

It was utterly delicious, though, and simple as anything to prepare. We sliced an onion and popped it in a pan with butter and olive oil on a low heat, along with a couple of sprigs of rosemary and some chopped garlic. Let it sweat for quite a while, until it's really soft and caramel-y, then we whacked in some marsala or balsamic vinegar and reduce the mixture down until it caramelises fully. At the same time we cooked off the chicken and boiled some pasta and green beans in the same pan (saves on washing up!)

Finally, we deglazed the chicken pan by pouring in some marsala and scraping away at the delicious sticky bits on the bottom of the pan. These are absolutely the best bits and their flavour should never be wasted! We combined the reduced marsala and onions (take out the rosemary sprigs first) with cream and the chicken juices, poured that over the drained pasta and beans, and ate with the fried chicken. Very creamy, totally dreamy.

Here's the recipe, which is based on one from Nigel Slater's Real Cooking:

Ingredients (for two):

2 chicken breasts
Some green beans
A few handfuls of pasta
Olive oil
Butter
An onion
Some Marsala, Madeira, or Balsamic vinegar
Some garlic cloves
A bit of rosemary


Method:

1. Chop the onions and garlic and sweat in a pan with butter, olive oil and rosemary until very, very soft. This may take a while. At the same time, fry the chicken (either chopped or whole, your choice) in some olive oil.
2. Ten minutes before the chicken is done, pour some Marsala over the onions (turn up the heat a bit, as well) and put the pasta and chopped green beans in boiling water.
3. When the chicken is done, deglaze the pan by pouring over some Marsala and scraping at the sticky bits over a high heat, then add this to the onions. Remove the rosemary from the onions
4. Let the alcohol boil off, then add some cream.
5. Drain the pasta when it's done, then add it to the sauce and mix well.
6. Either stir in the chicken or serve it with the pasta to the side.
7. Enjoy.