Latest news with #pancetta
Telegraph
03-07-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Simple pea and watercress soup
This is a very simple green soup using the kind of vegetables I always have to hand and it is endlessly adaptable. Vary the greens to include kale, cabbage or spring greens or if you like, add some diced pancetta, chopped bacon or ham to the mix. There are plenty of ways to boost the flavours if you choose to – try adding some fresh ginger or mint or a sprinkle of ground cumin or chilli flakes or a good squeeze of lemon juice.
Daily Mail
21-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
The Canny Cook: Cherry tomato and pancetta pasta
Few dishes bring me as much joy in the summer as pasta with cherry tomato sauce. It has been a true staple of my warm-weather cooking for as long as I can remember. Although there may be small variations in the supporting ingredients, the heart of the dish always remains the same: really good extra virgin olive oil and vibrant tomatoes. I almost always have a punnet of cherry tomatoes in the fridge in summer, which is handy because larger ones just don't deliver the same results. Cherry tomatoes are naturally sweet and juicy, with a more concentrated flavour and lower water content. They also contain more pectin (a natural thickening agent) than bigger varieties, which means they emulsify with the olive oil to create a rich, velvety sauce. In this recipe, I've added salty pancetta, of which a little goes a long way. If you are looking for a vegetarian option, try replacing it with a couple of tablespoons of capers, torn black olives or chopped sun-dried tomatoes – anything that brings a briny, umami hit. Alternatively, you could skip the shallot and pancetta and just add some thinly sliced garlic for the simplest take on this sauce. As with most tomato- based pastas, a few torn basil leaves and a showering of grated parmesan provide the perfect finishing touches. METHOD Finely dice the shallots. Heat 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil in a large frying pan, add the shallots and pancetta, and fry over a medium heat for 6-7 minutes until the shallot softens and the pancetta is golden. Quarter the tomatoes and add to the pan with a pinch of salt, turning up the heat a notch. Fry for another 6-7 minutes until they have broken down a little. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pan of salted boiling water for a minute less than the packet instructions. Scoop out a mugful of the cooking water before draining. Tip the drained pasta into the frying pan with the tomatoes and pancetta. Add a glug of the cooking water and toss everything over the heat for a minute. Divide between plates and top with plenty of parmesan and a few torn basil leaves, if you have them. Season with ground black pepper and serve. Do you have a great recipe for eating well and cutting food bills? Email editor@ If we print it here, we'll send you a bottle of champagne *This cost assumes you already have some basic store-cupboard ingredients. prices taken from aldi and correct at time of going to press.
CTV News
11-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- CTV News
A delicious spring pasta recipe
A delicious spring pasta recipe Chef Stephen Barrett shows how to make his recipe for pasta with asparagus and pancetta.
Associated Press
09-06-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Saffron brings a golden hue to this fresh combination of zucchini and pasta
This pasta dish, a riff on an offering served at Trattoria Bertozzi in Bologna, Italy, is a golden, fresh combination of guanciale (cured pork cheek), fragrant saffron, summery zucchini and short, curly pasta. In this recipe from our cookbook ' Milk Street Backroads Italy,' we opted for easier-to-find but equally meaty pancetta, and lightened the dish's richness by swapping in half-and-half for the heavy cream. The restaurant uses gramigna pasta, a tubular, curled shape from the Emilia-Romagna region, but cavatappi or gemelli works just as well, combining with the zucchini and catching the lightly creamy sauce in its crevices. Saffron is best when steeped in hot liquid to extract its flavor and aroma. To infuse the dish with a golden hue and earthy-floral flavor, we soak a generous pinch of saffron threads in a portion of water before combining it with the pasta. Don't boil the pasta until al dente. Drain it when it has a little more bite than is desirable in the finished dish; the noodles will cook a bit more in the sauce. Also, don't forget to reserve 2 cups of the cooking water before draining the pasta. Serve with shaved Parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. Pasta with Zucchini, Pancetta and Saffron Start to finish: 40 minutes Servings: 4 Ingredients: 1 pound zucchini 12 ounces short, curly pasta, such as cavatappi or gemelli Kosher salt and ground black pepper ½ teaspoon saffron threads 3 ounces pancetta, finely chopped 1 medium garlic clove, smashed and peeled ½ cup half-and-half 1 ounce Parmesan cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler Directions: Halve the zucchini lengthwise, then use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. Slice each half lengthwise about ¼ inch thick, then cut the strips crosswise into 1-inch sections. In a large pot, boil 4 quarts of water. Add the pasta and 1 tablespoon salt, then cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente. Reserve 2 cups of the cooking water, then drain. In a small bowl, combine 1½ cups of the reserved water and the saffron; set aside the remaining ½ cup water. While the pasta cooks, in a 12-inch skillet over medium, cook the pancetta and garlic, stirring occasionally, until the pancetta has rendered some of its fat and begins to crisp, about 3 minutes. Remove and discard the garlic, then stir in the zucchini and ½ teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pancetta is fully crisped and the zucchini is lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Add the pasta and the saffron water to the skillet. Bring to a simmer over medium-high and cook, stirring often, until the pasta is al dente, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the half-and-half and cook, stirring, until the sauce is lightly thickened and clings to the pasta, about 1 minute. Off heat, taste and season with salt and pepper. If needed, stir in additional reserved pasta water 1 tablespoon at a time to create a lightly creamy sauce. Transfer to a serving bowl and top with Parmesan. EDITOR'S NOTE: For more recipes, go to Christopher Kimball's Milk Street at
The Guardian
01-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
How to make clam chowder – recipe
I ate a lot of clam chowder in Massachusetts last summer. Thick and comfortingly creamy, it might feel a tad wintry were it not for the sweet, briny clams, which sing of sea breezes and sunshine. Though the name derives from the French chaudière, or cauldron, chowder is New England through and through, and best eaten in the fresh air, whether that's in Cape Cod or Capel-le-Ferne. Prep 40 min Soak 20 minCook 30 min Serves 4 2kg live clams, or defrosted in-shell frozen clamsSalt and black pepper200g thick unsmoked bacon, or pancetta1 onion 2 medium waxy potatoes 1 bay leaf 2 tbsp plain flour 150ml double or whipping cream A knob of butter Though they're abundant along our coastline, clams aren't terribly popular in this country. Fishmongers and some supermarkets (eg Morrisons) often have live clams; they can also be found online, and in the freezer section of bigger supermarkets and in Asian food stores. Unfortunately, US-style tinned clams in juice aren't that widely available in the UK, and seeing as it's those cooking juices that make this dish, Italian jarred clams in brine don't really work here. To prepare the clams, discard any with broken shells and give the rest a good scrub. If using live clams, rather than frozen and defrosted ones, put them in a large bowl or sink, fill with very salty (like the sea) water and soak for at least 20 minutes to filter out any sand. Repeat if necessary, but I've never had to do this. Drain the clams, get rid of any grit they've ejected, then put them in a large bowl or sink of fresh water to expunge any excess salt while you prepare the remaining ingredients. If you're using defrosted frozen raw clams, give the shells a quick onceover for cleanliness and skip to step 4. Cut the bacon into smallish dice – unsmoked is traditional here, and smoked will give the dish an entirely different flavour profile. Either way, try to use thick-cut bacon, because those wafer-thin rashers increasingly favoured by supermarkets tend to disappear in soup. Peel and finely chop the onion, and wash and chop the potatoes into roughly 1cm dice (no need to peel them first, unless they're particularly filthy). Drain the clams, then put them in a large pan with 600ml water. Cover, bring to a boil, cook until they're all open, then tip into a colander set over a bowl to catch the liquid. When the clams are cool enough to handle, take the meat out of the shells (discard any that remain resolutely shut tight). You probably won't need to chop the picked clams, because those sold in this country tend to be far smaller than American ones, but roughly chop the clams if any are on the large side. Strain the clam cooking liquor through a couple of layers of paper towel (or cheesecloth), then measure it and add enough water to bring it up to 1.2 litres. Put a medium saucepan on a medium heat, then gently fry the bacon in its own fat until it begins to render. Add the onion, fry until soft, then turn up the heat slightly. Once both the onion and bacon are beginning to colour, add the bay leaf and flour, and cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes. Pour in the clam liquid bit by bit, stirring to dissolve the flour, then add the chopped potatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes, until tender. Stir in the cream, clams and butter. Season to taste with salt, if necessary, and plenty of black pepper, then serve immediately, ideally with a large hunk of bread (or if you're on the US west coast, in a sourdough bowl). If you're making the soup base ahead of time, don't add the clams (or the cream and butter, for that matter) until you reheat the base, because overcooking will make the clams rubbery (keep the meat in the fridge until needed). Similarly, if you know you've made too much base, freeze the excess before adding the clams and dairy to the pot (you can freeze the clam meat separately). Felicity Cloake's new book, Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast to Coast in Search of Real American Cuisine, is published next week by HarperCollins at £16.99. To order a copy for £15.29 go to
