Perhaps the ultimate comfort food?

I was in such need of comfort food for lunch today - work last night sucked arse, and I had to do another eight-hour shift today. And with Low-Fat August only one day away, I needed cheering up more than ever...

72. Pasta with cream and truffle oil

This is a suggestion from the Fast Food chapter, and is very fast, almost instant gratification, in fact. The "effort" required to make it is nothing compared to the incredible payoff.

We had mascarpone left over from the wonderful Rhubarb, Muscat and Mascarpone Trifle, so I decided to use that instead of double cream. I also wanted to use some up before Low-Fat August, when mascarpone will definitely be off limits.

Basically, all you do is cook the pasta (spaghetti in this case, because it cooks faster than my preferred pasta, linguine), and then toss it through some butter, grated parmesan cheese and cream, before adding a few drops of white truffle oil. Nigella doesn't specify quantities, but I just went by eye.


Perfect

The dish is absolutely gorgeous. I was amazed that something so simple could taste so elegant and refined. (Probably due largely to the expense of the ingredients... $25 for a 250ml bottle of the oil!) A warning though, go very easy on the truffle oil! You seriously only need 2 drops of the stuff for 100 grams of pasta. I did 3-4 drops, and whilst the taste was not overpowering (just), I did have a serious garlic-rubber breath thing happening for the next hour or so.