Bacon & Mushroom Tagliatelle with Homemade Pesto

In my continuing search for "quick midweek" meals, I was attracted to an idea posted by Buntybear over on nigella's site ... "bacon and mushrooms fried, add some pesto and a bit of cream, grated parmesan and mix with tagliatelle." Not a recipe as such but enough inspiration for me to form a mental picture of this on the plate and get an urge to make it without delay.

I didn't have any tagliatelle in the house and, it being a "quick midweek" meal, making my own obviously didn't fit into the scheme of things at all. Unfortunately, in the village I couldn't find any fresh pasta so ended up buying a box of Barilla Tagliatelle all'Uovo, at least a fairly good make although I do prefer DeCecco. I did draw the line though at buying a jar of pesto and so, seeing as how I have basil growing in the garden, decided to make my own.

To make a small jar of pesto ... firstly, finely chop two cloves of garlic by hand, then tip the fine shards into the bowl of the food processor. Now add a big handful of basil leaves, 3 tablespoonfuls of pinenuts, and season with a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. With the processor running, slowly drizzle extra virgin olive oil in through the feed tube until all the ingredients are puréed. You may need to stop the processor and scrape down the sides with a spatula. Now remove the processor blade and add about a cupful of freshly grated parmesan cheese and gently stir it into mixture. Scrape the pesto out of the processor bowl into a jar, or small container, and store it in the fridge until needed. It will be fine for a few days and also freezes well. I used just about half the pesto for this dish.

So on to the recipe. I cut the bacon into thin batons and tossed them into a deep, 25cm wide, thick-bottomed pan. One large enough to be able to add the cooked pasta to the sauce, when ready, and give everything a good toss around. I put the bacon into a cold pan because, depending on how much fat is in the bacon, as the heat gradually makes its way through the bottom of the pan, the fat will begin to render and the bacon will start to cook in its own juice as it were. My bacon was fairly lean and so when the bacon started to sizzle a bit I added about a tablespoon of butter and, when it had melted, stirred in the sliced mushrooms. If you have very fatty bacon you may well need less butter. I think it important to keep the fat/oil content as low as possible, not forgetting the pesto has oil in it too, so as not to make the finished dish over oily.

The bacon batons and sliced mushrooms were then cooked over a medium heat until the mushrooms started to take on some colour and then the sauce was given the final touch by stirring in the pesto and double cream. Now it just needed the cooked and drained pasta to be tipped into the sauce and tossed around to coat it with all that tasty goodness. Easy peasy! This had a lovely deep flavour and with a generous grating of parmesan over the top was really declicious. Will definitely be making it again. Thank you Buntybear!

Bacon & Mushroom Tagliatelle - Serves 2

100g bacon, cut into batons
10-15g butter
100g button mushrooms, finely sliced
3 tbsp pesto
90ml or thereabouts of double cream
250g tagliatelle
freshly grated parmesan to serve

Add the bacon to a cold heavy-bottomed and deep pan over a medium heat. When the bacon starts to cook in its own fat, add a small knob of butter and the sliced mushrooms. Continue cooking over a medium heat until the mushrooms start to take colour.

In the meantime cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Shortly before it is ready, add the pesto and double cream to the sauce and let it gently simmer for a few minutes. Now stir in the drained pasta and give everything a good toss around. Serve immediately with plenty of freshly grated parmesan over the top.