My darlings, I am super excited about today's blog post. I found a delicious, artisan pasta from Italy! The brand is Bella Italia Products. For this new recipe inspiration, I chose their Fileja Calabresi pasta.
Here I combined eggs, cream, pancetta, and salt cod to create a delicious 'one of a kind' recipe. Inspired by both classic Italian and Portuguese dishes. This dish is indulgent, elegant, and bold! Enjoy xoxo
Fileja Calabresi Pancetta Salt Cod in a creamy Carbonara Style Sauce
Serves 4-6
500g. Pasta Fileja Calabresi
300g. Salt Cod fillet desalted and ready to cook
100g. Pancetta, guanciale or smoked bacon
170g. Grated Pecorino Romano
180ml. Full fat/whole milk
150ml. Double cream (full fat)
125ml. Dry white wine
60g. Butter
30g. Fresh oregano, finely chopped. I used whole sprigs as garnish.
6 Eggs; 3 whole plus 3 yolks beaten
4 Garlic cloves finely chopped
1 Bay leaf
1. Place the salt cod in a small saucepan with bay leaf. Fill the pot with milk and heat on low to gently poach the cod fillet. About 12 minutes.
2. Remove the cod to the plate and gently flake with a fork. Add cream and grated cheese to milk and reserve, discard the bay leaf.
3. Fill a stock pot with 5 liters of water, adding 50g of salt for every 500g of pasta (slightly over a pound). Add pasta after the water comes to a boil and cook according to the package directions. Bella Italia brand was 16 minutes.
A good rule of thumb, when determining how to salt your pasta, in water is "10-100-1000". This is the ratio of salt to pasta to water. So,10g of salt is the right amount to cook 100g of pasta in 1000ml of water (1000ml=1Liter)
4. In a non-stick frying pan, turn the heat to high. Add pancetta and fry until golden, stirring often, until crispy and brown.
5. Add dry white wine to the frying pan, scraping bacon brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
6. Turn heat to low and add butter, reserved cod flakes, and garlic. Cook for 1 minute. Turn the heat off.
7. Heat reserved milk and cream back up to hot, but do not let it boil. Strain into a fine mesh sieve. While beating the eggs, slowly add the hot cream mixture in a steady stream to temper the eggs. Pass through the sieve again to catch any egg bits that may have scrambled.
8. Drain pasta and return to stock pot. Add your bacon, cod mixture, creamy egg sauce, and oregano. On a very low heat, stir to incorporate for 30 seconds. Taste and adjust to taste.
9. Plate abundantly and serve with lots of freshly cracked black pepper and extra Pecorino Romano.