Recipes To Blog About

This is part of a challenge from swap-bot to cook a recipe recommended by another swapper and then blog about it.

Carbonara

Lima recommended this carbonara recipe. Carbonara is something that always sounds nice but Italian restaurants in England tend to include mushrooms so I never order it.

Ingredients:
• Four egg yolks + 1 egg
• 100 g/a half cup of grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 150g/5.5 oz of diced guanciale or a good quality smoky bacon
• 320g/12 oz of spaghetti
• Two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

First cook your pasta as per the instructions. Keep the salt low because both the meat and the cheese are already quite salty. In a separate pan sauté the bacon in a thin layer of olive oil. Once the bacon is golden and crispy, take it off of the heat and leave it to cool for a few minutes.

In a bowl, whisk together the four egg yolks plus the whole egg until completely mixed. Add the grated cheese, mix it in well, and after add the black pepper. If the sauce seems to be too thick, you can thin it by adding the pasta water a little at a time. Here Now add the bacon which has, by this time, cooled a little. Mix everything together, and with that, the sauce is ready.

When you drain, leave the pasta a little moist -- don't get rid of all of the water. This will help to thin out the sauce so it coats all the pasta. Now, mix it together, and once the pasta's coated, serve it right away.

Thoughts
I can't watch YouTube videos so I made this entirely from the instructions and I got really worried when they didn't mention actually cooking the egg. As a child of the 80s I have a deeply ingrained fear of raw egg. I also couldn't get Pecorino Romano cheese so I ended up using mozzarella as that's what we had. I was actually quite relieved when the cheese bunched up and the egg ran out when I spooned the pasta out of the pan. I wouldn't make this again, as I try to make food that's suitable for our whole family and this really isn't suitable for a one year old.


Mint and Basil Zucchini (Courgette) Salad

Over the last few years we've started growing our own fruit and vegetables. So far the most successful vegetable has been our courgette (or zucchini) plants, we can usually get 5 strong plants in containers to produce more courgettes than we can find a way to eat. One of the recipes suggested by my swap partner Lima was Mint and Basil Zucchini Salad, I'd never thought to try them with mint before!

Ingredients:
Courgette 800 g
1 tablespoon coarse salt
Extra virgin olive oil to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste
4 basil leaves
4 mint leaves
1 clove of garlic

Wash the courgette under running water. Pat dry with a cloth and the cut off the two ends. Divide the courgette in half.

Cut it in half again in the direction of the length and then made wide slices of about 1.5 cm. Now take a large pot, fill it with water and bring to a boil. Pour the sliced ​courgette in boiling water.

Add a teaspoon of salt and simmer for 10 minutes. After ten minutes, drain the courgette with a colander and let them cool. Then transfer them to a baking dish and drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil.

Add salt and pepper to taste and add a diced clove of garlic.

Then add the chopped mint and basil leaves. Mix everything together with a fork or a spoon and your courgette salad with mint and basil is ready to be served and eaten either warm or cold. If not serving immediately, keep it in the fridge until ready to eat it!

Thoughts
I really didn't expect the combination of basil and mint to work but it really did! I would definitely make this again but I'd probably blend everything but the courgette to get a more even coverage. Will definitely make this again.