Creamy Pasta With Smoked Bacon and Peas

Please guys when a recipe says bacon think pork flavoring meat in any form you like. Ham bacon pancetta prosciutto hocks. Chorizo? Yes. Hot dried salami? Yes. Work it how you like it. This is fifty dishes not one. Frozen peas I dump in a strainer and drain the pasta over. You do it your way. Mint and peas love each other. Crema cream creme fraische sour cream yogurt you pick. Orecchiette or shells nice. Mezze rigatoni sure. Spaghetti? If that's what you got? Sure.

Here's a secret(?) about peas. You don't really need to cook them. They are their most delicate and delicious when they are just heated through. I always add them to any hot dish at the very last minute and keep them on the heat only long enough to thaw them heat through. If you can get the knack of this, it will change the way you think about peas. They pop in your mouth with flavor and texture and have no hint of the pastiness that peas get when cooked too long.

Made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious! I didn't change a thing - made just as is.

*Don't fret over things like 'is the bacon thin or thick sliced'. If you do, you'll never be a great cook. An okay cook, maybe, but not a great cook. Cooking is a creative process, not a precision exercise.

Made this last night for dinner. Excellent! I used orecchiette and it held the peas and sauce in them like little cups. Didn't measure a thing, just kept it close to the recipe and tasted as I went. Some folks just need to relax about the measuring and just use their palette. Hard to learn much about cooking if one is always tied to an exact recipe. Cook. Taste. Breath. Eat pasta.

I made this tonight with diced pancetta, finely chopped leeks, fresh blanched peas. Omitted the mint, added crushed red pepper flakes and big rigatonis. With a nice green salad and a glass of white wine, this was a dinner worthy of a very good Italian restaurant. A keeper.

It's bacon. It's always "to taste."

It's 2016. Can't we have measurements for everything? You rightfully don't say "4 handfuls of small pasta"; you say "1 pound". So why say "10 slices of bacon" instead of e.g. "8 oz sliced bacon"? I'll wager that a thick slice of bacon weighs about 3x as much as a thin slice, so it actually does matter.

I buy bacon at the butcher and occasionally at the supermarket. It's pretty standard in size. Just use 10 slices and breathe ..... :)

Simple, delicious, and, for the full effect, don't skip the mint. It adds a powerful delicacy and lifts this dish to new heights.

This is a winner. I cut the pasta and bacon in half; used more cream, (slightly) less cheese, a couple tablespoons butter, 12 oz peas, lemon juice, salt, & a healthy dose of black pepper. No olive oil (no need) & no mint (forgot it, didn't miss it). It took 15 minutes. Awesome!

Tips: If you are going to try the full recipe, use a huge frying pan. Don't drain the bacon fat after frying. (I did trim a lot of bacon fat before frying). Do save some pasta water. It came in handy.

This is Jamie Oliver’s recipe. He is a Brit. It isn’t dishes like this one but portion size, lack of exercise, junk food and processed, sugary food put together that lead to obesity.

Great, simple, delicious recipe! Try 1/4 cup of ricotta cheese (as in Marcella Hazan) instead of cream for one of my favorite comfort food recipes.

One of the many veggie and pasta dishes that my mother used to make and that I raised my kids on. Any handful of ham will also work--maybe with half a sauteed onion. I love Jamie Oliver for pointing out how quick an easy it can be to feed people if you just know a few basic things.

I'm assuming this is a joke...

Add mushrooms