This week in "Random Cooking Questions" . . .

[swan_tower]

I have a tasty recipe for linguine with a sauce of bacon, shallots, and sun-dried tomatoes in cream — but my sister dislikes creamy things. She suggested doing it as a butter sauce instead, and I’m debating the best way to approach that.

Current recipe: cook chunks of bacon for six minutes in olive oil over medium heat, add chopped shallots for 1 minute, add cream and bring to boil, turn off heat and add sun-dried tomatos and parmesan.

Butter variant: should I just cook the bacon in butter and otherwise proceed as before? Or brown the butter for a while before adding the bacon? Or something else? Does this subsitution even work? (It’ll obviously create a different texture overall, but that’s the goal: my sister isn’t lactose-intolerant, just anti-creamy texture.) I could just experiment, but in the interests of winding up with an edible meal at the end, I thought I’d see what the commentariat advises.

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

Butter plus bacon seems like it would just be greasy and not come together. Maybe cook the bacon and shallots in oil, deglaze the pan with white wine or stock, reduce it with the tomatoes, and thicken with a beurre manie if needed?

[sovay]

Maybe cook the bacon and shallots in oil, deglaze the pan with white wine or stock, reduce it with the tomatoes, and thicken with a beurre manie if needed?

This.

[sovay]

Butter variant: should I just cook the bacon in butter and otherwise proceed as before? Or brown the butter for a while before adding the bacon? Or something else?

My personal feelings are "something else," because that feels like a lot of unrelieved lipids to me. (I take it the bacon itself doesn't render enough fat to soften the shallots in.) I would probably push this in the direction of a white wine sauce personally, the sort of thing that I mentally classify as a piccata even if it doesn't contain lemons or capers.

[mrissa]

I would be floored if the bacon did not render enough fat to soften the shallots in.

I would cook the bacon and either cook the shallots in the bacon grease and drain both, then add to the butter, or cook the shallots in the browning butter before adding the DRAINED bacon.

Draining the bacon will be crucial.

Really really drain the bacon.

[rachelmanija]

I'd just skip the cream and maybe add some wine. I don't think you need to add butter.

[mrissa]

This also would work. Bacon fat is going to give you plenty if you don't actively want the taste of butter.

[saraqael]

Skip the butter and just use the olive oil. Maybe top it with some optional feta or goat cheese crumbles as a substitute for the cream.

[benbenberi]

Ditch the butter - it's just extra grease on top of the bacon. Boost the cheese and you've got the fixings for a classic pasta alla Gricia:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/02/seriously-italian-pasta-alla-gricia-recipe.html

Or add an egg and black pepper for pasta all Carbonara: http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/italian-easy-pasta-alla-carbonara.html

[via_ostiense]

I'd do this like a carbonara:

get your linguine going, and then cook your bacon. Pour off most of the bacon fat, leaving a couple tablespoons. Cook the shallots in the remaining fat in the pan, and add sun-dried tomatoes. Crack a couple egg yolks (1 per person) into a large bowl and beat them with the parmesan. When the noodles are done, mix the noodles, bacon, shallots, and tomatoes into the bowl of egg+cheese (keep stirring rapidly, so that the eggs don't scramble).