The Best Pasta in the World.....EVER!

I thought that to supplement my earlier bitching about low fat crap, i'd post up a recipe for the best pasta in the world....ever!

Now i've fed this to a few people (Dan, Nick) and they both loved it. Now i warn you now - this is NOT a light dish. It's rich, its got cream in it, and you WILL be full up after eating it.

You need two pans - one for doing the pasta itself, and another for doing everything else. I found that a large, heavy stainless steel wok is best for this. Loads of room in it.

Now, you're going to need the following ingredients:

* Fresh Tagliatelle Verdi / Dried if Fresh unavailable - really *should* be Verdi.
* Three Chicken Breasts
* 6 Rashers of unsmoked, rindless back bacon
* 4 Large white mushrooms, peeled and sliced
* Jar of Green Pesto
* 400ml Tub of Double Cream

Now, this is reasonably simple, but you'll end up with a spectacular meal.

First, cook your chicken breast in an oven, make sure its cooked all the way through. Once cooked, dice into small, easily manageable chunks. Add to wok.

Fry or grill your bacon, it doesnt matter, but make sure its cooked. Don't let it get TOO crispy. Once cooked, like the chicken, slice it up into small bits. Also add to wok.

Get mushrooms, which you should have peeled and chopped beforehand - remember to remove the stalks! Add to wok with the chicken and the bacon.

Open the jar of pesto and take a large amount out - say, a dessertspoon load, and bung it in the wok (yes, we're going for accurate cooking terms ladies and gents) with a tablespoon of groundnut oil. As tempting as it might be, don't use olive oil - something with as neutral a taste as possible works best here. Olive oil is too overpowering.

Heat through on a blisteringly hot gas ring, making sure the chicken, bacon and mushroom are all mixed together nicely and coated in a fine layer of pesto.

Turn the heat down to the halfway mark and dump in the cream. Now you may not need all of it - it entirely depends on how much chicken and bacon you've bought and used, but generally you want to make sure that the contents of the pan (wok in our case) are almost covered by the cream. Leave to simmer for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, start boiling the water in the other pan, ready for the tagliatelle. Once boiled, add your pasta. Now i'm assuming you're using fresh pasta here - if not, just adjust the cooking time to suit. Fresh tagliatelle for this meal, takes around 3 minutes to cook in boiling water.

Once the pasta has finished boiling, drain in a colander and divvy it up between your plates. Turn the wok off. Use a serving spoon (one of those ones with holes in it) to divide up the meat/cream/pesto sauce.

Do *not* add parmesan to it - trust me, it's good as is.

There - a fine meal brought to you by me, using no low-fat ingredients!