Here is a quick pasta recipe that I grew up with. It requires few ingredients and really capitalizes on the smack-you-in-the-face flavor of Densmore Farms Cherrywood Bacon! Let me know how it goes for you!
Ingredients for two-person dinner:
– 2 cups Penne
– 4 slices bacon
– Half an onion
– Marinara (12-14 oz tomato)
– Rosemary
– Red chili flakes
Tips:
(1) Bacon. When using bacon in dishes a nice trick is to cook the strips half way before chopping them into smaller pieces. This makes it easier to cook the bacon evenly, and makes it easier to get the timing right when you add the chopped bacon back into the pan.
(2) Rosemary. Take a walk around your neighborhood making a mental note of the best rosemary bush. When you are prepping for dinner, grab a glass of wine, some scissors, and return to snip off 2-3 rosemary sprigs. When I was a kid my mom sent me down the street (without wine, ugh) to clip rosemary for the Chicken Al Forno at Machiavelli.
(3) Marinara. You can use whatever you like here. Because the bacon (and the Vignalta Salt) is so flavorful you can get away with a can of crushed or strained tomatoes. Less prep work and still delicious.
(4) Vignalta Herbed Salt. This stuff is seriously the bomb. It augments literally any pasta (tomato-based, olive oil-based) and any meat (steak, lamb, pork). In our case here – its a wonderful crutch when you don’t have a “real” marinara sauce prepared. In Seattle I’ve seen it at PCC. Certainly it is available at food importers and online.
Recipe.
(1) Water on and pre-cook the bacon.
Turn your salted water on to boil for the pasta. Cook bacon strips on low in your saute pan. Let the bacon get some color and render some fat. After a few minutes remove the bacon when it is approximately half-done.
(2) Chop bacon, onion, and rosemary.
Chop the bacon into roughly 1/2 inch squares, set aside. Dice your onion. Pluck the rosemary from the stem and give it a coarse chop.
(3) Pasta in! Start your saute pan.
Put your pasta in the boiling water and give it a rigorous stir. Add your diced onion to the the rendered bacon grease. Before the onion starts to brown, add in your chopped bacon. Give the bacon and onion a minute or two until you have some nice color and the bacon looks done. Add rosemary and chilis, sauteing for 30 seconds.
(4) Add your tomato (and salt). And pasta water.
Time to add your tomato directly to the bacon and onion. Depending on the source of your tomato sauce you will need to add your salt. Also depending on your tomato it may quickly become too thick. The solution here is to ladle in pasta water. The secret to great pasta sauces is to ladle in small amounts of pasta water as needed (and repeatedly). Always use pasta water (its salty and starchy) as opposed to tap water.
(5) Drain pasta. Save some pasta water.
I usually set a timer for my pasta for 2 minutes less than the box says. Pasta box says 10-12 minutes? I’ll set a timer for 9. This gives me some leeway to get the pasta out, and to keep cooking the pasta for a minute or two in the sauce. I always save a coffee cups worth of pasta water in case I need to loosen up my pasta sauce later!
(6) Toss pasta into the saute pan!
Now its time to add the pasta to your pan and let everything simmer together for a minute or so. If things are looking thick be sure to add a little bit of the pasta water that you saved.
(7) Plate it!
Toss the pasta and serve it up with Parmesan cheese.