Oink Oink!

I've been busy traveling the last couple of weeks and haven't cooked as much. The food I ate while traveling will be another post. Tonight was supposed to be a "light" meal since I have been eating out a lot, but it ended up not being very light.

I was perusing my fridge and freezer trying to come up with something to make for dinner. I remembered I had pancetta from Boccalone in San Francisco and I wanted to build a dish around it. I found tortellini and broccoli and there was my dish! My other half wanted some bacon so I bought a few slices of jalapeno cured bacon from Whole Foods.

The first thing I did was boil my broccoli for 2 minutes that way it wouldn't need to completely cook in the pan and bring everything else to a halt. Using the same water, I cooked my tortellini in it.

While the tortellini was cooking, I rendered down the fat of the pancetta and bacon.

Rendering down the pancetta and bacon

Then I added diced up onion and garlic.

Once the garlic and onion became translucent, I added the broccoli.

The tortellini finished cooking, I added it to the mix and let them all mingle together. I added cayenne pepper, ground black pepper, parsley, thyme, garlic powder, and chili powder for taste.

I topped tortellini off with a poached egg to give it a creamy texture like carbonara, green onions for freshness, and some pieces of the pancetta and bacon for crunch.

Perfectly poached egg with the yolk dripping down. YUM.

It was a great meal. The pancetta had enough salt for the entire dish, the creaminess of the yolk against the tortellini left a buttery feel to the mouth, the bacon and pancetta had a great crunch, the broccoli and green onion slashed the buttery feel and gave it a fresh taste. Thinking back I should've added lemon juice for acidity, and I also have a ton of lemons. I'll add some juice to the leftovers!
   
                                                                                   

                                                                     Until Next Time!
                                                                          CheFelicia