Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 – 25 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2
Recipe: Wa’ro website

Ingredients

• frozen chestnuts – 200g (or 500g of fresh chestnuts)
• 1 unwaxed lemon
• sage leaves – a dozen or so
• 1 red chilli – finely chopped
• Parma ham – roughly torn apart – 4 slices
• Tagliatelle – 200g
• butter – 20g
• extra virgin olive oil
• s & p

Start by dropping the frozen chestnuts into boiling water and cooking for 5 minutes (or as instructed on the packet)

Meanwhile, pour a good slug of olive oil into a frying pan. Remove the rind from the lemon, cut into thin strips and add to the oil along with the sage leaves and chopped chilli. Gently cook over a low heat to infuse the flavours.

Cook the tagliatelle in plenty of salted boiling water until just al dente.

Add the chestnuts and ham to the infused oil and cook for 5 minutes until the chestnuts are warmed through and the ham is crispy.

Remove the lemon rind and add the butter along with the juice from the lemon.

Drain the pasta and add to the chestnut mixture. Toss together to coat the tagliatelle with the flavoured oil.

Take an uninspired photograph and serve immediately.

Verdict: I had the vegetarian non-Parma ham option whilst my co-blogger had the fully porked up non-vegetarian Parma ham option. We both enjoyed our dinners although I suspect she enjoyed her porcine version considerably more. A good, easy, tasty and unusual mid-week meal.

A piglet sets off to Parma is search of fame and fortune

Drink: There has been a change in the boozing dynamic of the yumblog household…water.

Someone drinking water

Entertainment: MasterChef obviously. After all it’s the final week and today Daniel, Marianne and Steve had to squander their talents on an Adidas sponsored table of sports ‘personalities’. This is a demographic not renowned for its culinary sophistication as perfectly exemplified by Kevin ‘I’ve never heard of asparagus with poached eggs before’ Pietersen. Pearls before swine – the contestants should have just kicked a KFC bargain bucket into the room and buggered off down the pub.

“Fish? With chips? Who’d have thought it?”