Spaghetti with lardons in cream and garlic sauce (my carbonara)

This is a weekly staple in my household, my wife loves it. The dish is so quick and easy to make and if you don’t make your own pasta it takes seconds to prepare. It’s not a classic carbonara because it contains cream but there are classic techniques in the recipe. It’s an incredibly versatile dish that you can keep in your repertoire as a foolproof meal when unexpected guests arrive or you need a quick lunch.
Experiment with it by changing the lardons for smoked salmon, adding peas or even cooking shellfish in the cream infusing stage and scattering them around the pasta when plating up.

INGREDIENTS

fresh spaghetti or tagliatelle (enough for two)
1 large free range egg
60g lardons
2 garlic cloves peeled and bashed open with the flat of a knife
125ml half fat thick cream (this is very common in France but a single cream will do)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to season
Dried or chopped fresh basil for garnish
30g of grated Parmigiano reggiano plus extra for garnish
Glug of extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of dried thyme

METHOD

Pour the cream into a sauce pan over a low medium heat and add the garlic, thyme and season well with salt and pepper. Heat through and once hot (not boiled), remove from the heat and pour into a bowl, set aside to cool and infuse.

Heat a frying pan over a high heat with a little oil. Toss the lardons in and seal them crisp on all sides. This should only take around 2 minutes, keep them moving all the time so they don’t stick or burn.

Once sealed remove from the heat and place on kitchen paper to drain excess fat.

When free of oil, transfer the majority of the lardons to the warm cream mixture and allow to cool for around 20 minutes, save a handful for the garnish.

Next take your fresh pasta out of the fridge so it can return to room temperature, this will make it easier to separate prior to cooking, fresh pasta is soft and can stick together when cooking.

Once the cream and lardon mixture has cooled remove the 3 bashed cloves and discard them. Separate the pasta and drop it into boiling water with two generous pinches of salt and cook until al dente tasting it throughout the cooking process to ensure its perfect texture and bite.

Drain the pasta but don’t discard the salty cooking water, this is essential to the dishes glossy, saucy sheen. Set the pasta aside in a sieve above the salty cooking liquid.

With an open ended whisk, crack the egg the into the cream mixture and combine, making sure not to get too much air into the mixture.

Place the pasta into a fresh pan over a low medium heat and add the cream, egg and lardon mixture, stir vigorously so not to stick and make sure not to scramble the egg, if it gets too hot lift it off the heat and then return. After one minute add a ladle of the pasta cooking water and let the mixture reduce whilst continually stirring and folding the pasta over itself.

Once the liquid is reduced by half add the grated Parmesan and stir to combine. Check the seasoning and add fresh ground black pepper at this point.

Let the liquid reduce completely but don’t let it become too dry. It should be smooth and still visible as a sauce with all the pasta coated equally. If it does go a little dry you can ladle more of the pasta water in and begin reducing again.

When you have the correct consistency your ready to plate up. Dig a large pasta fork or long pronged fork into the center of the pasta and turn, let the pasta wrap around the fork and keep turning until you have a portion size your happy with. Get the ladle out of the pasta water and slide it under the fork to pick the pasta up, give it a few turns in the ladle to get a nice even shape and also to give it some height.
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Keep the fork in the ladle and transfer the pasta from the pan to a warm deep pasta plate, slide the ladle out being careful to keep the height of the pasta.

Finish with grated Parmesan, basil and some of the lardons you kept from the sauce.

Chicken and chorizo with crispy gnocchi. Basil, lemon and garlic infused cream.

This is a great dish if you have a few people for dinner, it’s fast with minimal prep and really tasty. There’s lots of possible variants with this so you can really experiment with different sauces and even possibly adding a side accompaniment. It has a bistro feel and is guaranteed to impress your diner, I usually start with insalata caprese and this dish follows nicely.

This recipe serves two generously with a starter.

INGREDIENTS

2 chicken breast fillets, trimmed
One chorizo sausage. Skinned and sliced down the middle, length ways
125 ml Single cream
Lemon wedge
300g of fresh potato gnocchi -pre made will do, I find it takes the same time in the pan because it’s already pre boiled
Hand full of fresh basil
2 cloves of garlic
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

METHOD

Pre heat fan assisted oven to 200 degrees

Heat a small sauce pan over a medium heat and pour in the cream, season the cream with salt and pepper.

Next top and tail the garlic and bash them with a wide knife on a board, discard the skin and add to the pan of cream.

Roll up 6 to 7 good sized basil leaves and slice into ribbons, add to the pan and give a quick squeeze of lemon and stir, turn the heat down just to keep warm and allow to infuse.

Heat a large frying pan over a medium high heat and add the chorizo flat side down, no oil needed, let the chorizo release it’s oil in the pan. The chorizo will cook very fast so no more than a minute to minute and a half is necessary for a decent sear.

Flip the chorizo over once well coloured and cook for another minute, then wrap in foil and set aside.

Generously season the chicken with salt and pepper and place them in the same pan that cooked the chorizo, add a little oil and place over a medium high heat.

Sear well on both sides and then transfer to an oven proof dish, place on the middle oven shelf for 6 and a half to 7 minutes.

Wipe the pan with kitchen paper until it looks dry and place back on the heat, at this point give your cream a stir. The reason for wiping the pan is basically to remove the colour of the chorizo oil, orange gnocchi is not particularly attractive on the plate!

Add a knob of butter to the pan and straight away a drizzle of oil, this is to stop the butter burning.
Remove from the heat and roll the butter and oil around in the pan to combine.

Next add the gnocchi to the pan and season generously with salt and pepper, toss to coat in seasoning and oil.

Cook through and crisp the gnocchi on both sides by tossing regularly (for around 6 minutes)

When the chicken has 2 and half minutes of cooking time left, place the foil wrapped chorizo on the same shelf next to the chicken to warm through.

Once the chicken is cooked remove it along with the chorizo from the oven and allow to rest for one minute, whilst the meat rests arrange the gnocchi in a circular shape in the centre of a warm plate.

Drizzle the cream around the outside of your gnocchi, try to allow the least amount of liquid to come into contact with the gnocchi so it’s stays nice and crispy.

Place the chicken in the centre, on top of your gnocchi and finally the chorizo on the chicken. I always find a plate with height is really inviting and afterwards thought some lightly dressed watercress on the chorizo would have been nice.

A quick squeeze of lemon on the chicken and chorizo and your finished!