Fresh pappardelle with pancetta, chillies and mushrooms all brought together with white wine and a carrot pesto
Fresh pasta will cook in about 4 minutes. Pappardelle are wide and a little rough, so what they do really well is hold a sauce. The carrot pesto is an easy make, and something I wanted to try out as I had a glut of carrots. You don't usually cook out pesto, but this ain't a traditional pesto - it's just a pesto 'cause it was blitzed/battered into being, which is basically what "pesto" means.
So there.
INGREDIENTS
PESTO
carrots
basil
pistachios
lemon
garlic
Pecorino cheese (or Parmesan if that's what you've got)
olive oil
THE SAUCE
pancetta (I used smoked, which worked very nicely, thank you very much)
a chilli
mushrooms
nutmeg
black pepper
white wine
pappardelle - or whichever pasta you fancy
Watch the video
METHOD
PESTO
Trim the carrots
Sprinkle them with oil, salt and some chilli flakes - even a little ground coriander
Pop them in the oven at 180ºC for 1 hour
When they're cooled, drop them in a jug with the basil, garlic, nuts and lemon juice
Blitz them up
Add the Pecorino and a really good glug (8-10 seconds) of olive oil
Blitz it up
Any you don't use, pop in a sterilised jar and cover with oil. It'll keep for about a week in the fridge
THE REST
Trim and deseed the chilli
Chop it up finely
Slice the mushrooms to about the same size as the pancetta you're using
Heat a pan with a little olive oil
Add the pancetta
Add the chillies and stir it about
Cook that for about 10-15 minutes
Add the mushrooms, nutmeg and pepper, stir it around and add a glass of white wine
Reduce that for about 15 minutes then add the pesto: a good dollop of it
Meanwhile...
Boil a pan of salted water and drop in the pappardelle
4 minutes later...
Add a couple of ladles of the pasta water to the sauce
Drop in the pasta with tongs to keep some liquid
Stir it through
Serve up with grated Parmesan or toasted chopped hazelnuts