Recipe - Sausage Carbonara Pasta

In my post last week about my favourite things of 2016 I said that my favourite meal was this pasta dish so I thought I would share the recipe so you can experience it too.

Sausage Carbonara

1 pound Italian sausage (I used three large sausages, I didn't weigh them, two mild Italian and one hot Italian)

1 package of pancetta (chopped)

1 box linguine (whole wheat pasta gives the dish more texture)

4 large egg yolks

1/2 cup heavy cream 

freshly grated parmesan (the original recipe calls for 3.5 oz, but I don't know how much that is, so I just eyeballed it, I used about 1/3 cup in the egg mixture and then more grated overtop of each portion)

zest of 1 lemon

fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped (again I didn't really measure this, just grabbed a good sized handful of parsley, put some in the egg mixture and then saved the rest for each portion)

extra virgin olive oil

Heat a large frying pan over medium high heat and add a good splash of olive oil.  Remove the sausages from the casings and pull apart into bits and add to the hot pan.  Fry them until golden brown, then add the pancetta and continue cooking until golden. 

Boil a large pot of salted water.  Cook linguine according to package directions.  

Whisk together egg yolks, cream, parmesan, lemon zest and parsley.  When pasta is cooked, reserve some of the pasta water.  Strain the rest of the pasta, put back in the pot and immediately add the egg mixture, tossing quickly.  The heat of the pasta and the pot will gently cook the egg but won't scramble it.  Add the sausage and bacon to the pot and toss to combine.  Add enough reserved pasta water to loosen the mixture slightly, about 1/4 cup.  Serve and top each portion with extra cheese and parsley, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Eat immediately!

This is how I reserve the pasta water, by carefully scooping some out with a liquid measuring cup before draining it. 

Try this recipe and maybe it will be your favourite meal of 2017!