Penne Carbonara with Zucchini

In reference to the challenge, I settled on butchering Jamie Oliver’s courgette carbonara from his Jamie at Home book. Well, I have to make do, don’t I? I have previously talked about making carbonara but I figure it’s worth repeating.

I chop up a green, medium sized zucchini, two cloves of garlic and two rashers of bacon. I put about 2 cups of wholemeal penne* in boiling water.

Meanwhile, I slowly fry off the garlic and bacon in a little bit of olive oil and butter. I mix together 1/3 cup of cream, 3 eggs and a big handful of grated parmasan cheese with a bit of salt and pepper. As zucchini is pretty fast to cook, I add the slices into the bacon/garlic mixture after the bacon fat has been fried off quite nicely. I toss the zucchini in and cook until it’s golden.

I then drain my pasta (which by now should be cooked) and toss that into the bacon/zucchini mixture and stir around until the pasta has absorbed all the sauce and become hot. I then turn the heat off and stir in the egg/cream/cheese mixture and toss around until I get a nice carbonara consistency.

I have some fresh parsley so I chop some up and threw them in last minute. It’s not the flowering thyme Jamie has asked for, but I think it will do nicely.

Note: I have found that wholemeal pasta tastes pretty much the same as the white pasta so I have taken to buying wholemeal pasta where available. However, I find that in a dish delicately flavoured as this carbonara, it’s better to stick with white pasta. Also remember that wholemeal pasta takes longer to cook. I have been caught out undercooking wholemeal pasta once. Never doing that again!