Tagliatelle with saffron, bacon and peas

Delicious pasta

What I sometimes like to do and I am sure I have told this before, but o well, I am getting old so then it is allowed to repeat onces self (within reason ofcourse..lol) When I need to work in the studio I sometimes decide I want to prepare a nice lunch; first to eat it ofcourse, but also so I can take photos and try some settings while I am at it. And I always love a good pasta for lunch. The “lunch culture” in Holland is very much of the boring sandwiches kind of lunch, although obviously you can spice any sandwich up to looks something like this or this... Just let your imagination run wild. But having pasta for lunch; I don’t know… it makes me feel good and I just loooooove pasta to bits. So I was browsing the internet this morning for ideas on what to make for lunch that would taste good, have mascarpone in it and look good (yes, yes, I know it’s rather pathetic to pick dishes out because they have a potential to look good..) and I stumbled upon this gorgeous dish on the Good Food website. I have changed it slightly as the original called for angel hair pasta and I just do not like angel hair pasta. It’s too…. angel like..

It also reminded me of one of the first pasta dishes I did that completely looked like the worst pasta dish ever!! In fact it was so bad that I deleted the photos… and I never delete photos that are technically correct. And on top of that I switched blogs and the original photos in the original post that I wrote about this disaster were also gone… So I can’t really show you how far I have come since then. Anyway… just believe me when I say that this looks much much better…! I did learn some stuff about foodstyling in the process… But I just decided I will cook that recipe again soon… I just have to do better! (update; I just found the photos again which had been misplaced. I reuploaded them in the post from last year but you will be able to see a before and after if I redo this dish!)

So, here I am, in the studio frying some bacon in the pan and it’s a good thing I do not have a smoke alarm there or it would have gone completely crazy! I don’t have a proper stove in the studio so I cook on those little portable burners which work fine most of the time but I also don’t have a ventilationsystem so I have to rely on the open window, which did not work very well… Man, there was some serious smoke forming! It’s a good thing my customer came hours later or they would have called the fire department upon entering the building! (well, ok I do like to exaggerate a little from time to time)

Thankfully the open window did help in getting rid of most of the smoke soon, so no harm done… As for the pasta; it’s another one of those great recipes which you can adjust to your liking. I loved it and I got to use some of my leftover mascarpone (which you will find out all about on saturday!) I only forgot to bring my parmezan cheese so I had it without, which was also good, but definitely would be even better with some nicely grated parmesan on top! Btw; did you also notice a lot of peas in my meals lately? I just notice it myself all of a sudden…

Tagliatelle with saffron, bacon and peas (serves 2, ready in 15 minutes)

few slices of bacon

1 pinch of saffron

olive oil

1 garlic clove

200 ml of white wine

2 tbsp of mascarpone

1 lemon, zested

150 gr frozen peas, defrosted

100 gr tagliatelle

basil, chopped to serve

freshly grated parmesan

In a non stick frying pan (preferably a deep one) heat the olive oil and cook the garlic and the bacon until golden. Crush the saffron in a small bowl and add 1 tbsp of boiling water. Allow to sit for 1 minute and then add to the pan. Pour in the wine and season well.

Reduce by half and then add the mascarpone, lemon and peas and heat through. Cook the pasta according to package instructions. Drain well and add to the pan with the sauce. Serve with basil and grate some fresh parmesan on top.

And did you notice how incredibly quick this is?? The taste was surprisingly good. Better then I even had imagined it to be…

I am sending this dish in for Presto Pasta Nights #152 (which is my first time, can you believe it??) which is hosted by Michelle of Italian Mama Chef this week!