Pasta with Carrots

Bacon and pasta. You can pretty much add any other ingredient you want and make a great meal. But the roasted carrots, miso and green onions here are pretty fantastic if I might say so myself.

My Asian pantry is so varied you might think I'm this wok maven, chopstick expert coming up with different uses for them. I have never pronounced half of them out loud, for what it's worth.

But I do know that the few sort-of-Asian dishes I made are top-notch, like the Szechuan Pork. I wouldn't post them otherwise.

Ingredients and steps

The ingredients are few, so they all do their own magic.

• Green onions: I use regular green onions (image above) because they add a particular flavor like no other. But you can use leeks or shallots too with very good results. Even some chopped chives at the end will work if you don't have any other sort of onion.
• Bacon: I like to use thick-cut bacon for pasta. Thick slices cut into small pieces, cooked slowly to let the fat render (image below). So it acts as a part and not only as a garnish or flavoring, which in my opinion, is what happens when you add bits of crunchy bacon.

• Miso: it gives the sauce a very unique flavor depth; it functions as sort of a stock cube (or bouillon). Like umami. Kinda. I use the brown one or dark-colored. There are others, lighter colored. You can buy them online.

What is miso?

Miso is a mix of fermented soybeans, a grain, and a culture. The result is a paste, that can be lighter or darker in color, with a lot of flavor, and a staple in Japanese cooking.

After discovering miso, it took me a while to grasp it's flavor and uses. All new ingredients pretty much go down the same road in my mind, they take their time before I can add them with abandon, certain that I know what I'm doing. Now, I pretty much consider it a bouillon cube, or concentrated broth. To read more about miso here are two good links.

• Carrots: the original recipe lacked something at the time, so I added roasted carrots (leftovers from this Carrot Dip). They don't need a long time in the oven, I like them to remain somewhat crunchy but add that deep roasted flavor. You can use coarsely grated or minced carrots to avoid that extra step.
• Pasta: boil it while making the sauce. I use dry short pasta, fusilli usually. I love the way the sauce clings to the nooks and crannies. I think that is the best way to eat pasta, when it sticks to it. Otherwise, the flavors never quite come together, in my opinion. This is a great recipe to use leftover cooked pasta.

• Skillet: use a large skillet or saucepan to make the sauce so you can add the freshly cooked pasta (al dente) to it (image above). This way the flavor meld together a bit and the flavor is better.
• Salt: don't go heavy on the salt at the beginning, since both the miso and bacon are already salty.
• Garnishes: when serving it I add some parmesan cheese, lots of freshly grated black pepper and chopped parsley (image below). They make the plate of pasta look great and add a lot to the final flavor, they complete it.