I’ve always been a fan of pasta and the mind boggling variety of sauces possible. Carbonara is one of my favorite for the creamy, savoury, funghi and pork explosion with the first mouth-full.

Then the experimentation started, with sweet dessert wines. Sometimes I substitute parsley with rockets to confuse friends, or chopped garlic when its that time of the month, or duck eggs and duck fat when I’m in the mood to over indulge. I’ve never looked back since.

Ready

• Full Cream
• Brown Brothers Orange Muscat or comparable
• Onion
• Portabello and white Button shrooms
• Streaky bacon and Pancetta
• 2 eggs (one for each plate of pasta)
• BUTTER!!
• Parmesan reggiano
• Parsley

Set

• Colander
• Pot
• Sauce pan
• Chopsticks or Tongs

Go

Prep bits

1. Chop up 1 large onion
2. Slice up shrooms
3. Cube bacon and pancetta
4. Finely chop parsley
5. Shave as much parmesan as you like

Pasta

1. Boil spaghetti, linguine, or penne for about 7 mins NO MORE
2. Make sure its salty water.
3. Drain in colander and let the under cooked pasta cook itself

Sauce

1. Sweat onions in olive oil and good butter
2. Add in the bacon and fry till smell permeates the house
3. Add shrooms to the pan
4. As the water from the shrooms are released, add more butter
5. Add in the wine, about half a bottle (its a small bottle)
6. Evaporate the alcohol and you’ll get sweet syrupy consistency
7. Add in the cream and simmer for a bit
8. Add in Pancetta
9. Salt and pepper to taste (i usually don’t add in any salt or pepper)
10. Sprinkle half the parmesan and parsley
11. Add in eggs to the cooking mix only just when about ready to serve
12. Ladel steaming sauce over pasta and mix
13. Sprinkle on remainder parmesan and parsley
14. Chow time

What you should know

I find that bacon and pancetta brings the right amount of salt to the sauce, so as a rule I don’t add in anymore salt.

This sauce with the wine used, brings an interesting twist of flavors because of the floral and mead notes in the bouquet. A definite no no for purist! This is a recipe that puts a frown on your face till you’ve actually tried it. It is quite a bit of a run about when you have a mouthfull.