FAY'S BAKED CARBONARA

As I have mentioned several times, my daughter Arabella's favourite meal is carbonara and so when I asked what she wanted for supper last week, I was not surprised that the answer was......carbonara. I decided to cook this recipe from Fay Ripley's original cookbook - it is my favourite book and as it is baby friendly I expect I will be using it a lot more regularly in the future. This recipe took around 40 minutes to make.

Ingredients for 4 people:

1 small onion, finely chopped
200g pancetta, bite size
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250g dried spaghetti
2 large eggs yolks
150g asparagus spears
150ml carton single cream
4 tablespoons vegetable stock
4 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
6 tablespoons grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped ((I left this out as I didn't have some)
1 tablespoon olive oil
(I also used extra grated cheese but that is because we LOVE cheese)!

Preheat the oven to 180C (fan), 200C, gas mark 6. 

Fry the onion and pancetta until cooked, and then add the garlic briefly.

Meanwhile cook the spaghetti, drain and immediately mix the egg yolks with the hot pasta. At the same time, make up the stock and either steam, blanch or microwave the asparagus (I microwaved but you could steam them over the pasta). Set to one side.

Gently mix together the eggy pasta, the onion and pancetta mixture, asparagus, cream, stock and half the Parmesan. Pile into an ovenproof dish. Mix together the remaining Parmesan, breadcrumbs, parsley and olive oil and scatter over the top. I also added some grated cheese. Bake for 15 minutes.

Divide into 4 helpings and enjoy.

Arabella was initially a bit peeved that I wasn't cooking Pascal's Pasta Carbonara but once she had eaten a couple of mouthfuls, she was waxing lyrical about how delicious this carbonara was and so were Pascal and I. It worked so well and I adored the addition of the asparagus - it made the carbonara much fresher and lighter. I will definitely be cooking this again - a real treat.

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