This is actually a Jamie Oliver recipe, but I’m sure he won’t mind my sharing. I discovered this dish when my friend Dan invited too many people over for dinner and then didn’t have quite enough pasta with which to feed us all; perhaps the fact that we were all left wanting more was part of what hooked me.
However bare my fridge might be, I always try to have a block of parmesan, a pack of bacon and a couple of parsnips ready so I can whip up this dish when I need some comfort food. (I hate that term, but that really is what this is.) Jamie tells you to use tagliatelle, but I prefer linguini (something about tagliatelle always feels slimy, no matter how ‘al dente’ you cook it); having said that, in the photo I took of last night’s dinner, I used penne so (unless you are an Italian purist) you can use whatever pasta you like. While you’re waiting for your salted pasta water to boil, chop some smoked streaky bacon and begin frying it in a pan that’s slightly bigger than the pasta pan. If you have good quality bacon, no water should be released on cooking, and you can add your parsnip in thin batons, a clove of chopped garlic, a sprig of chopped rosemary or thyme and a few grinds of black pepper. When the pasta is cooked, drain it but reserve some of the cooking liquid; by this time the parsnips should be slightly caramelized and breaking up. Throw the pasta into the pan with the bacon and parsnips, along with a handful of parmesan, a knob of butter and enough of the pasta water to make the mixture unctuous and ‘lissant’. The strips of pasta should slide over each other like wedding night thighs…
Serve with a glass of red wine and a good helping of trashy soap opera.