We had a hankering for pasta for dinner last night and I was inspired by our recent visit to Terroni's to make a lighter sauce that didn't drown the pasta. Once I had decided on going sparse with ingredients I realised that I wanted to use fresh pasta because it is so good! I say this and yet I haven't eaten it in years, I always opt for the cheaper dry version but this time we got fresh and I was very pleased with the result especially using the fettuccini variety. You can find some varieties of fresh pasta in whole wheat, but if you are going to go against the grain why not go the whole way, white pasta it was!
Initially it was going to be vegetarian pasta and then I got a calling to get some ground pork to go in it as well. I think it would be wonderful as a vegetarian dish, just for some reason, this time, I had a calling. It was also a very quick meal to make indeed. The pasta cooks in only 4mins, so I got a pot of water boiling to start things off and then it was ready to drop the pasta into right at the end. The next thing to do is start frying up the ground pork, with some salt, pepper, sage, parsley and a tiny drizzle of honey (like 1 tsp). The pork was extra lean so I did need some oil to fry it in, but if you had a less lean meat I would just throw it in the pan as is and get going with it. You need to move the meat around to cook it evenly and break it up into smaller pieces and let it brown, but at the same time you can make the other part. So, in a wok, I used a small bit of butter and cooked a finely chopped onion. I then added some sliced cremini (small brown) mushrooms (half a box) and some asparagus pieces (1 bunch, with the tough bits snapped off and then cut into about 3 pieces), some salt and pepper and garlic and quickly cooked them off. If you like the asparagus el dente then this should only take like 3 or 4mins. I then added a couple of tbsps of cream to give it a tiny bit of fluidity. At this point you will be putting the pasta into the water and then removing it once it is cooked in a few minutes and draining it. Then you add the pasta to the sauce and gently toss it around to incorporate the vegetables. I found it was a tiny bit dry at this point so I added a little splash of olive oil to help things along, not a lot, just enough to keep the pasta pieces from sticking to one another. Your dish is ready now if you aren't adding meat, if not, sprinkle some golden ground pork 'crumbs' into the dish, stir and serve. I grated a little parmesan over the top and some cracked black pepper and we were good to go.
The interesting thing with it being so simple, and so lightly sauced is that I focused more on trying to taste it all, which made me eat slower too. There is a difference between food being bland and food being gently pulled together and you have to go looking for the individual flavours in it. 'Looking for individual flavours' is what I was doing, my husband was telling me it was 'so good', as usual!
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