2 recipes in a row! It's interesting, but this months frugal drive has made me use my imagination and get cooking new and interesting things again.
Today's recipe is for spaghetti carbonara. Now I love this, but very very very rarely have it because it is rather fatty, using plenty of cream in the sauce.
Well here is a version that is guilt free as it is virtually fat free and still tastes as good - in fact, I would challenge anyone to tell the difference.
The secret is Quark. For those of you new to this product (probably most of you know it already, but it's new to me) it is a naturally, completely fat free soft cheese, yet has a deliciously creamy texture.
So here is the recipe for one:
Mix half a tub of Quark with one egg and plenty of black pepper.
Put on some spaghetti to cook.
Fry an onion, a chopped up clove of garlic, add some chopped bacon (remove the fat) and then some mushrooms and then remove from the heat when all well cooked.
Drain spaghetti, add the quark mixture to the onion mix and then add the spaghetti and toss to coat and season well.
That really is it.
You could add some parmesan and serve but it was good enough without any. Delicious and guilt free carbonara.
(Has anyone else noticed that on Blogger at the moment posts are taking hours and hours to make it onto the reading list?)
What is Quark? I don't think we have that in the States. Your recipe sounds luscious!
ReplyDeleteVery low fat cheese made from skimmed milk. Like cream cheese, in texture but without the fat/salt taste.
DeleteExactly. No idea what the States alternative would be called, but I am certain this will be an alternative!
DeleteQuark is a German product. I`m used to this as I grew up there. It`s made from low fat yoghurt. The yoghurt is drained through a muslin cloth so the watery content is dripping out slowly. What you are left with in the cloth after around 6 hours is your Quark/ low fat soft cheese. I make this product frequently at home from my home made yoghurt. The watery content can be caught in a cup and then used for baking purposes, so you have no waste at all.
DeleteYour carbonara recipe with Quark sounds a nice idea!
Hello - I thought the blogs are loading slowly, too. I am commenting about 3 minutes after the blog has appeared on my list. Time is now 11.55.
ReplyDeleteI have planned in penne 'carbonara' for Monday. I'd planned on cheating and using a skinny sauce with milk and cornflour. Not sure if egg would mix with that...
Well this is a brilliant alternative!
DeleteAn extremely waist line friendly recipe!
DeleteWill buy some quark quork whatever
ReplyDeleteTomorrow me thinks
Sounds delicious, must try this recipe.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a duck with a sore throat!!
ReplyDeleteLess calories is always a good idea so will look locally to see if we can get it here
OK, when I first read Quark, I thought of the character on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, I'm a nerd, what can I say...ha. I did some googling and found this about it: "Quark is classified as a sort of curd cheese somewhere between yogurt and small-curd cottage cheese. It's quite low in fat and versatile in the kitchen".
ReplyDeleteIn the states, there have been reports that it's been seen at Whole Foods but sells out so quickly, and quantities are limited that it's not around regularly.
I'll have to keep my eye out. Sounds really nice!
Fat free carbonara sounds like an oxymoron to me but will have to try this recipe to be proved wrong! x
ReplyDelete