To make this dish I used eggs from my godmother's chickens. In my opinion, there is no comparison between eggs laid by battery eggs and the warm buttery richness of those laid at home. This, plus my concerns regarding the appalling welfare of hens on the production line means I will only ever purchase free range eggs.
I also gathered some herbs and leeks that we grow in our back garden. Leeks are a sturdy vegetable that can withstand the chillier climes of autumn and many of the herbs we grow like rosemary and thyme can be used year-round. Chives are used to garnish this dish, sadly these wont see out the winter.
To make the pasta I used Michael Quinn's recipe from his blog Quinn at the Stove. Unfortunately I don't own a pasta machine so I faced the task of rolling and cutting the pasta crudely with a "sure it'll be grand" mentality. Tip: this is incredibly time consuming so beg, borrow or steal a pasta machine if you can!
I left the pasta to dry on a sweeping brush balanced over two kitchen chairs for about forty minutes before cooking.
A few test strands of pasta were cooked before I went ahead and made the dish, as it was hand cut it took a little longer than it would if I had used a machine. Each circumstance of cooking is different, my best advice is to taste the pasta as it cooks and always make sure the water is already boiling and salted. For this dish I cooked the pasta al dente, or with a slight bite, as I knew it would cook a little further as I prepared the sauce.
The leeks were peeled, washed, then sliced very thinly, and added to a saucepan with 100mls of warm cream. I added a rosemary branch and a piece of thyme and left the saucepan to keep warm on the stove while the rest of the dish was prepared.
The sauce was incredibly easy to make. In a casserole pan I heated about 50 grams of butter and added a splash of olive oil here to prevent the butter from colouring. When the butter was fully melted I roughly whisked 3 eggs and added them to the pan. I turned off the heat straight away so as not to overcook the eggs, they cook further when the heat of the just-drained pasta is added anyway.
After a moment when I could see the eggs beginning to become solid at the bottom of the pan I removed the herbs from the cream, drained the leeks and put them to one side and added the fragrant cream to the eggs in the pan, followed by the pasta, then tossed lightly. There really isn't anything more to this sauce other than adjusting seasoning to your own personal taste. Somebody told me once that you should never season eggs with salt before cooking them, as this ruins the texture. For me the pasta was already sufficiently salty to carry the sauce but I did add plenty of freshly cracked black pepper.
To finish, I plated the pasta and placed the cream-softened leeks in a little pile on top. The chives I picked earlier were tied into a small bundle with one chive strand, then oiled with a little EVO to make them shiny.
