mini shell pasta with a creamy smoked bacon and pea sauce

picked up jamie oliver's food revolution book from the library, and this is the first recipe I made from it. I made a couple minor adaptations, because I'm sure the the bacon being called for in the recipe was more pancetta than the canadian bacon... either that or jamie wants everyone to have a heart attack.. "cook bacon with butter & oil"... and no mention of draining off the fat! In the end the entire family loved the meal and it is a "do over".

"A quick and easy dish that the adults will enjoy just as much as the kids."

Ingredients:

• 10 slices smoked bacon or pancetta, finely chopped
• a small bunch of fresh mint, leaves finely chopped and stalks discarded*
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound dried mini shell pasta**
• 2 cups frozen peas
• 2 tbsp creme fraiche (or heavy cream)
• 1 lemon
• 6 ounces grated parmesan cheese

Preparation:

• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
• Add the mini shells and cook according to package instructions.
• In a large frying pan over medium heat, fry the bacon until golden crisp and season with a little bit of pepper.
• As soon as the bacon is golden, drain the excess fat, then add your frozen peas and give the pan a good shake.
• After a minute or so, add the creme fraiche and chopped mint.
• Drain the pasta in a colander over a large bowl, reserving some of the cooking water.
• Add the pasta to the frying pan.
• Halve your lemon and squeeze the juice over the pasta.
• When it's bubbling away nicely, remove the pan from the heat.
• The sauce should be creamy and silky but if it's too thick, add a splash of the reserved cooking water to thin it.
• Add the greated parmesan and give the pan a shake to mix it in.

Notes:

• Serving suggestion: Serve with a simply dressed green salad.
• *In the summer we have tons of mint in the garden but we can't stand paying crazy money for a couple of twigs of sad looking herbs in the winter so we used our dried stuff instead.
• **You can use other pasta shapes too but may have to adjust the cooking time accordingly.
• ***The original recipe called for olive oil and a pat of butter to fry the bacon in. We assumed that he was using a more dry European type of bacon with less fat than our North American bacon so we omitted the extra oils and fats, and then drained off the excess bacon fat after it was fried up.

Prepared: 2011-01-23

Makes: 4-6 servings

Categories: Pork

Recipe Source: Jaime Oliver's Food
Revolution cook book