Our Carbonara.

Last night, the hubbs and I chatted in the kitchen while preparing and cooking a fantastic papperdelle carbonara for our nightly meal.  We eat pasta in some shape or form once a week, focusing on veggie heavy ingredients and homemade sauces.  Traditionally carbonara is made with spaghetti, eggs, bacon lardo, peccorino cheese, pepper and some sort of fat.  I like to put a spin on recipes, so I tossed in some pea shoots, oyster mushrooms, leeks, soybeans and chives.  I chopped some pancetta into tiny pieces instead of using bacon, used an aged parmesan in place of peccorino and finished the whole dish off with touch of goats milk yogurt and freshly chopped thyme.  The resulting plate of yum filled our bellies without being too heavy.  Absolutely tasty...

*Winter Carbonara* (serves 4)
1/2 cup pancetta, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
2 cups goats milk yogurt
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons fresh thinly sliced chives
1/4 cup fresh thinly sliced leeks
1/2 cup pea shoots
5 oyster mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup shelled, cooked soybeans
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch of sea salt
8 ounces dried papperdelle


Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat with salt.

To make the sauce, saute the pancetta over medium heat until crispy. Add the leeks and saute until soft. Add the yogurt and bring to a low simmer. Whisk the egg yolks into the sauce, add the black pepper and season to taste with salt. Reserve.

When ready to serve, cook the pasta in the boiling salted water to al dente (about 8 min). Drain the pasta.

Add the pasta to the sauce and stir in the chives, mushrooms and parmesan; let everything simmer on low for one minute to properly absorb all of the flavors.

Using a two-pronged fork, twirl a quarter of the pasta and place it in the center of each of four bowls, spoon some of the sauce and garnish over and around the pasta, top with more grated parmesan, pea shoots and thyme as desired and serve immediately.

Mangia!
B