Pasta With Pancetta, Parsley and Peppers

I always have a stash of pancetta cubes in the fridge to spruce up whatever else I may have to hand, but here they rather take centre stage. If you want to use lardons instead, then do. They should be the same — the cubetti di pancetta, Italian, and the lardons, French — but for some reason the lardons are cut chunkier, and consequently a supermarket packet of them tends to weigh about 200g rather than the 140g of pancetta. Don't worry. Either pack size will do nicely here. This may be an off-the-cuff standby but it really sings for our supper. The salt of the bacon, whichever way you cut it, is balanced fruitily by the sweet softness of the charred peppers. Against the fire of the chilli, there is the bright freshness of the lemon, though if you wanted to you could substitute some vinegary capers. I feel the pasta's storecupboard status doesn't rule out the inclusion of fresh parsley, since my kitchen is never without it. But know that this is altogether do-able without. I should admit, too, that when you cook it the pasta will probably look slightly better sauced than it does in the photo; during the shoot I quite dopily — waiting for pasta to cook — chucked the panful of sauce into the colander by mistake, when my timer went off. Still, I salvaged most of it, and these things happen to us all. For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet