Low-Fat Pasta Boscaiola

westivan's Note:

A firm favourite in our house - creamy and full of flavour. I really like the curly fettuccine but any pasta shape will do. The original recipe in Super Food Ideas magazine called for 97% fat-free bacon, which is hard to get here and quite expensive, so I use shortcut bacon or middle rashers as a second choice with the visible fat removed.

• Total Time: 30 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 400 g fettuccine pasta
• 3 teaspoons cornflour
• 250 ml low-fat evaporated milk
• 125 ml low sodium chicken broth
• 125 g shortcut bacon , lean, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves , crushed
• 1 brown onion , finely chopped
• olive oil flavored cooking spray
• 150 g button mushrooms , sliced
• ¼ cup flat leaf parsley , chopped
• salt and pepper , to taste
• parmesan cheese , to serve

Directions:

1. Cook pasta in a large saucepan as per packet directions until just tender.
2. Blend cornflour and 1 tbl of evaporated milk until all lumps have dissolved. Add remaining milk, stock and season with salt & pepper.
3. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Add bacon and onion and spray lightly with oil. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until golden.
4. Add garlic to pan and cook another minute.
5. Add mushrooms, cover, and cook for 4 minutes or until tender, stirring every minute.
6. Drain pasta and set aside. Place milk mixture in saucepan used for pasta and place over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until sauce just comes to the boil.
7. Reduce heat to low and add pasta, bacon mixture and parsley. Toss until heated through and serve with parmesan cheese.

Reviews

[CulinaryExplorer]

This was fantastic! I even totally screwed it up and it was still great! I used regular bacon as well and quite a bit of it (about 3/4 of a pkg). After the first batch of bacon cooked to crispyness I started the second batch and threw in the onions... big mistake I forgot the moisture in the onion wouldn't allow the bacon to crisp up. So I cooked it a very long time and between trying to keep my son out of the cupboards,away from the stove, and trying to tend to the rest of dinner they burned. So we were onionless but I salvaged a few of the bacon pieces from that batch. After the chaos I had trying to switch skillets and all I ended up with a very attractive looking pasta dish that tasted wonderful. I will definately make this again with my obvious mistakes in mind!

[AshK]

We really enjoyed this dish! It is a great reduced fat recipe, which went with our WW points system very well. I stopped and drained the onion/bacon on a paper towel to remove the extra grease. I also used whole wheat fettuccine. We will make this again for sure. The sauce was creamy and the flavor was very good. Reviewed for Zingo!

[Annacia]

This is very good and that translated to excellent when you take into account that it's very low fat. It doesn't take a long time to make and really just hit's tha spot with a crisp salad.