Chorizo & Asparagus 'Carbonara'

At the time of cooking, and indeed writing the first draft of this, I was trying to clear the freezer of random odds and ends in the hope that I would then have some space for a dump of freezer meals such as chilli, ragu etc for when the baby arrived and I suspected I wouldn’t have the time (or inclination as it turned out) to cook..

We had two lonely little cooking chorizo wallowing at the back of a drawer somewhere so I figured I’d chuck them into a pasta dish.

The basis of this then was HFW “3 good things” recipe where he uses, surprise surprise, pasta chorizo and asparagus. I wanted to make it a little more carbonara-esque though as, if I’m honest, I wasn’t convinced by the simplicity, so came up with this.


Chorizo & Asparagus “Carbonara”
serves 2

150g spaghetti
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cooking chorizo, diced
100g asparagus tips, woody ends snapped off and sliced into 3 cm lengths
2 large egg yolks
100ml double cream
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Cook pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water and cook according to package instructions, adding the asparagus for the last 3-5 minutes (depending on how thick your asparagus is).

Meanwhile heat oil in a frying pan and add chorizo: cook for about 10 minutes until cooked through and crisp.

In a small bowl beat the egg yolks and cream together and lightly season.

When the pasta is done, drain (reserving a little of the cooking water) and return the pasta and asparagus to the pan then tip in the cooked chorizo and the egg mixture.

Stir everything together quickly so that the eggy sauce cooks in the heat of the pasta, adding a little pasta cooking water if needed to loosen the sauce a little (you probably won’t need to but it is always worth saving a little pasta water, just in case).

Serve immediately with some extra freshly ground black pepper and grated parmesan.