By Meg Walker
30th Apr 2018
30th Apr 2018
I confess to being swept up by spiraliser-mania and the delicious vegetable noodles that result, along with many others. I also confess that the ingenious contraption I have for the task is now collecting dust at the back of a deep cupboard. It is a brilliant design that folds down to a small discreet box, the issue being that it requires the skill of a 10-year-old whizz at Lego to assemble and I don’t use it often enough to remember how to do it. So during those minutes spent scratching my head and working out is that a shaft or is it the handle, I could have done it by hand. But, I am not giving up, because if you do want to go down this route, and this dish is a very good advertisement for spiralised veggies, then they are infinitely better made at home than bought. Like other pre-prepared vegetables, they rapidly succumb to drying and browning where they are cut, and there is no way of trimming them. So I won’t be throwing my spiraliser out just yet.
Serves 2
Ingredients
80g unsmoked streaky bacon, cut into 1cm dice, or lardons
30g salted butter
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed to a paste
sea salt, black pepper
300g courgette noodles (3mm)
100g carrot noodles (3mm)
2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus extra to serve
50g freshly grated Parmesan
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
lemon wedges, to serve
Method
Gently heat the bacon in a large, non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, and fry in the rendered fat for 4-7 minutes until golden and crisp, stirring frequently. Transfer to a double thickness of kitchen paper to drain.
Bring a large (unsalted) pan of water to the boil. Melt the butter with the garlic and some seasoning in a small saucepan.
Add the noodles to the boiling water, blanch for 1 minute, then drain into a colander and shake dry for about 30 seconds. Return these to the saucepan, pour over the garlic butter, scatter over the parsley and half the Parmesan and toss to coat.
Divide between two shallow soup bowls. Scatter over the remaining Parmesan, a little more parsley and the bacon, then drizzle over some olive oil. Accompany with lemon wedges.
Extracted from Low Carb Express by Annie Bell (Kyle Books, approx €20).
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