This is a real family favourite of ours. It has to be said that it looks a bit pale and insipid, but don’t judge this book by its cover – it is bursting with flavour; it’s utterly delicious.
We called it ‘hay and straw’ at home, because we always had it with the green and white tagliatelle. Nowadays, we tend to have it with spaghetti or pappardelle, so the ‘hay and straw’ title has lost its significance, but we know what we mean.
I am confident that the original Italian recipe would have called for veal mince, but when I was a child, it wasn’t possible to get humanely reared veal so as a family we stopped eating it. Of course, nowadays, you can very sympathetically raised British veal, but the meat simply isn’t on my radar yet. So let me show you the recipe made with free-range pork mince instead.

Finely chop an onion, chop 4 rashers of bacon and slice about 100g chestnut mushrooms.

Put about a tsp of oil in a frying pan and saute the onion and bacon until well browned

Add 400g pork mince and fry that until it is coloured too

Once it’s browned, add some salt and freshly ground black pepper

then add the sliced mushrooms and 2 tsp oregano

At this point, you can put your pasta into a saucepan of boiling water to cook.

When the pasta has only about 3 minutes left of its cooking time, taste the pork and check the seasoning. Add another tsp oregano if it can take it.

Pour most of a pot (150ml)  single cream (use half and half if you’re in the States)  into the pork and stir it through

Add a good handful of grated parmesan and some snipped parsley

Cover and let the cheese slowly melt

It might need a bit more cream to loosen it up, so empty the cream pot into it

Pile on top of your pappardelle, grate a little more parmesan on top and serve!

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Oregano Pork Pasta (aka Hay and Straw)

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1 onion, finely chopped
4 rashers bacon, chopped
400g pork mince
3 tsp oregano
salt and black pepper
100g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
150 ml single cream
handful grated parmesan
parsley

pappardelle, spaghetti or green and white tagliatelle (hay and straw!)

Prepare a pan with boiling water for your pasta.

Put 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan.
Add the onion and bacon and fry until browned.
Add the pork mince and fry until browned.

Add your pasta to boiling water at this point.

To the pork, add the oregano, salt and pepper and mushrooms. Allow this to cook whilst the pasta is boiling.
Once the mushrooms have softened, and the pasta is nearly ready,  add most of the cream and stir in.
Add the parmesan and parsley. Cover and allow to melt, or stir until it melts.

Drain the pasta, check the seasoning in the pork , add the remainder of the cream if needed and serve.