Day 2 Challenge: Pasta with a creamy smoked (beef) bacon and pea sauce

We love pasta. Simple pasta like aglio olio was always a comforting food. But I want to go further from simple aglio olio or simple tomato based pasta.

So here, my first ever creamy pasta cooked in Jakarta ;-)

Taken from 'Quick Pasta' chapter of Jamie's Ministry of Food, I cooked gnocchi-shaped pasta with a creamy smoked (beef) bacon and pea sauce.

For serves 3-4, I need:

* 7 slices smoked beef bacon (original recipe using bacon or pancetta, we don't eat pancetta so we used beef bacon instead);

   finely slice

* a small bunch of fresh mint, pick the leaves and discard the stalk

* 100g Parmesan Cheese, finely grated

* Sea salt & freshly ground pepper

* 300g dried gnocchi-shaped pasta 

* Olive oil

* a knob of butter (me, 30g)

* 200g frozen peas

* 1.5 heaped dessertspoon creme fraiche

* 1/2 lemon

How to:

* Bring a large pan of salted water to boil, cook pasta according to the packet instruction.

* Get a large frying pan over a medium heat and add olive oil & butter, add the beef bacon to the pan, sprinkle with pepper and fry until golden and crisp.

* As soon as the beef bacon is golden, add the frozen peas and give the pan a good shake.

* After a minute or so, add chopped mint and creme fraiche to bacon and peas.

* Drain pasta in colander, reserving some of the cooking water.

* Add the pasta to the frying pan

* Squeeze the juice over the pasta

* When it's bubbling away, remove from the heat, add the grated Parmesan and give the pan a shake to mix it.

{If the sauce is to thick, add reserved cooking water to thin it out a bit before you add the Parmesan}

Serve with green salad 

(We just eat it with fresh rocket from our garden. Heaven!)