Quorn Carbonara with Mince

48/70

I was a bit baffled by even the concept of this recipe when I first looked at it. This was not helped by the fact that this is one of few recipes in the book which does not have an illustrative photograph of the completed recipe. Mince!? With carbonara!? It just did not sound right.

As I mentioned fairly recently when I made the standard quorn carbonara, this pasta dish is not one of our favourites anyway - but we were actually pleasantly surprised by this and so I was ready to be convinced that a version with mince (as absurd as this seemed) could also be impressive.

Unfortunately it was not.

It is a very simple recipe where basically you just cook off the quorn mince with some sauteed onion and garlic, cook the spaghetti and drain then whisk together a couple of eggs and a tblsp of parmasan and mix the whole lot together. The heat of the pasta and mince cooks the egg mixture and it coats the pasta. And it is DRY. Very dry.

To be fair, the first few mouthfulls were pretty ok, garnished with fresh parsley and some freshly grated black pepper...but halfway through I started to feel like I was eating straw...and I was just LONGING for some kind of sexy sauce with pizazz and flavour and heat...and this is not it.

Here is a photo of the pasta served:

Personally I just do not think carbonara with mince is a good idea. The mince and spaghetti soak up any moisture out of the eggs (which is really the only place any moisture is) and the whole thing is really rather bland. H (husband, getting bored of typing it so H will suffice) summed it up by saying 'it's not very exciting is it?' which was very diplomatic to be honest.

I do not think I will make this one again.

Points wise it is a very low dish for pasta, mainly because it is so simple, each portion works out at 10 points as follows: pasta (6), eggs (2), parmasan (1). I got round the oil by using a spray version to saute the onions and garlic.

Thanks but no thanks for this one, we gave it an uninspiring 5/10.