Seven weeks ago this was a bag of flour and some eggs. This week it becomes the best plate of the course.
Your own tagliatelle, the ragù you made last week, and three small finishing touches that make it taste like more than the sum of its parts. The milk softens the tomato and rounds out the sauce. The lemon does the opposite, cutting through the richness so you want a second forkful. Leave either out and you'll notice.
You'll need
- The ragù from week 6
- 100gpancetta, diced
- 100mlmilk
- 1lemon, zest and ½ the juice
- 400gfresh tagliatelle
- Fresh parsley, finely chopped
- Parmesan, freshly grated
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
Method
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1
Crisp the pancetta
Put the diced pancetta into a cold sauté pan and set it over medium-low heat. Cook until golden and crisp, then lift out with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Starting cold lets the fat render out slowly, so the pancetta crisps instead of burning on the outside while staying chewy within.
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2
Cook the pasta
Bring a large pan of salted water to a rolling boil. Add the tagliatelle and cook for about 3 minutes, until tender with a slight bite. Fresh pasta cooks fast, so taste it.
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3
Bring it together
Add two generous ladles of ragù to the sauté pan and stir in the milk. Lift the pasta straight in with tongs, without draining it completely; the pasta water helps the sauce cling. Add the lemon zest and a small squeeze of juice, and toss until every strand is coated. Fold through the parsley and parmesan.
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4
Serve
Twist the pasta into a neat coil with a ladle and tongs and set it in the centre of warm bowls. Finish with more parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil and the crisp pancetta.
Two pans do the work
The Season Tri-Ply Sauté Pan renders the pancetta, then holds the ragù and the pasta together with room to toss. Its straight, deep sides keep the sauce in the pan and off the hob. The Season Tri-Ply Saucepan boils the pasta. Both are stainless steel around an aluminium core that runs up the sides, so the heat is even from base to rim, and both carry a 10-year warranty.
Shop the Tri-Ply Sauté Pan
Dough, sheets, three cuts, four sauces.
If you've cooked along, you now make better pasta than most restaurants serve. Keep the recipes: the weeks are all here on the blog whenever you want them.
Created by Season with Francesca, our specialist pasta tutor. The cooking you see is real; the presenter is an AI avatar we used to stitch the lessons together.