Bacon Pasta Master – A Pasta With Bacon Dish That's Ready In Minutes

I call it the 'Bacon Pasta Master'. It take literally minutes to prepare, and not much longer to cook. Why 'master'? Well, it's the first dish I ever mastered, way back when I started taking my cooking seriously. It also rhymes with 'pasta'…

This recipe will feed two people.

What you'll need is:

• 180 grams (6 ounces) pasta. I prefer spiral pasta as the sauce clings to it better, but you can have whatever you prefer
• 2 rashers of bacon
• 1 small onion
• 180 grams (6 ounces) small mushrooms
• 150 millilitres (5 ounces) thickened pouring cream
• Some parmesan cheese. I prefer grated, but shredded is fine.
• Canola oil

• A large saucepan
• A medium sized frypan
• A colander
• A wooden spoon
• A serving spoon
• A sharp kitchen knife
• A stovetop

Cut the bacon into 2.5cm (1 inch) strips, each about 1cm (½ inch) wide. Chop the onion into small pieces (slice it thinly at first, and then again perpendicular to the first cuts – this works really well). Then wash the mushrooms and slice them thinly.

Fill your saucepan with water, and add a couple of tablespoons of salt. Stir the salt until it's completely dissolved (this stops the pasta sticking together). Bring the water to boil and then add your pasta. Cook for however long the packaging recommends.

While the pasta is cooking, add a small amount of canola oil to your frypan and heat to a medium-high heat.

When the oil is hot enough, add the bacon and chopped onion. Stir-fry continuously for about 4 minutes, or until the bacon is cooked.

Then add the mushrooms, and cook for a further 2 minutes or so.

Reduce the heat to low, and then add the cream to the frypan. Stir continuously for 1 more minute. Don't let the cream sit and starting boiling – you'll get a skin over it.

Once the minute is up, remove the frypan from the heat.

If the pasta is ready, drain it in the colander. When it's fully drained, add the pasta to the frypan. Gently mix the pasta and sauce together until it's nice and even, and the pasta is well coated.

Grab your serving spoon, and serve up into pasta bowls, and sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the top. Then, enjoy your Bacon Pasta Master!

Variations

Instead of chopped onion, try using thinly sliced spring onions (also called scallions, green shallots)

A less healthy alternative to canola oil is butter. It does enhance the taste, but beware of the extra calories!

To reduce the amount of calories, use evaporated milk instead of cream. The sauce will taste the same, but be a bit more runny. You can fix this by mixing 2 teaspoons of cornflour in a small amount of water, and gradually add this to the sauce during the final minute. It should then thicken up nicely.

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