Ricotta sauce with bacon and herbs
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All you need to do is break up some ricotta cheese and mix it with your cooked pasta. No special cooking or extra ingredients are needed.
This will give a rather thick sauce, for a somewhat dry pasta dish. For a wetter, thinner sauce, simply mix in a bit of the pasta cooking liquid.
And there you have it - a ricotta sauce. What could be easier?
Too easy? Well, that is just the basic sauce. For a something more interesting and more tasty, try the recipe below, which marries ricotta cheese with bacon and herbs.
The slighly difficult part might be finding the riccota cheese in the first place. I knew I would not get it as my neighbourhood supermarket. Still, I was surprised that I could not buy it as a specialist Italian deli - Quattro Stagioni (previously at Liang Court, now at the basement of Orchard Central).
In the end, I found it at The MarketPlace, at Tanglin Mall. After that, I found it at several other places too, at quite different prices. Click here for a fuller discussion about buying rocotta for this ricotta sauce.
This was the first ricotta pasta sauce that I tried and my success with it really encouraged me to experiment further. The recipe below is really "free-and-easy". Once you have the basic ricotta cheese sauce - which is a no-brainer to prepare - the rest is up to your imagination and creativity.
Penne with ricotta sauce, bacon and herbs
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 200g bacon
- 2 large onion
- 6 cloves garlic
- 2 cups chopped fresh herbs - use two or three types of herbs, choosing from basil, oregano, flat leaf parsley, coriander, spring onions, mint, etc.
- 1 tub (250 grams) ricotta cheese
- 500g dried penne, fusili or other pasta, cooked according to instructions.
- 1 cup liquid from cooking pasta
Method:
- Finely cut the bacon, garlic and onion.
- Heat the olive oil in a heavy pan. Add the bacon and fry until golden, about 10 minutes.
- Add the garlic and onion and continue frying for about another 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and toss in the cooked pasta, herbs and ricotta cheese. Slowly add the pasta cooking liquid until you get the desired consistency.
Note: No seasoning is needed because the bacon is already salty. But if you do feel you want a strong flavour, add just a little salt at the start of the cooking.
Variations:
There are many variations to this recipe for Penne with ricotta sauce:
- Instead of bacon, you can try ham, sausage or other salted meats. I am thinking of even trying it with salted fish (using a mush smaller amount) fried till crispy and sprinkled on the top before serving. This has a flavour which Asians would enjoy. Westerners might find it strange, especially combined with a ricotta cheese.
- The main variation would be in the types of herbs used. I did not specify the type of herb in the recipe above because I know it can be difficult to get the exact varieties. For example I used to be able to get very good quality organic basil cheaply at Jusco supermarket in Johor, Malaysia. But I have not seen it for more than a year already. The type of herbs used will probably have the strongest impact on the flavour of this penne with ricotta sauce.
- Instead of (or in addition to) fresh herbs, you may want to add some salad-type vegetables, such as cherry tomato, cucumber, carrot, celery, etc... all cut into small pieces.
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