Pasta Recipes #3: Mezze maniche with red chycory and bacon

I've planted some red chycory salad in my vegetable garden this winter and I usually use it for making salads. But this time I wanted to try something different, since I read that it can be used to make pasta sauce. I had some fear to obtain a bitter sauce using red chycory, but with the addition of some cream and milk it was really delicious and not bitter at all. So, here's the recipe!

Ingredients (for 4 people):

• 300g pasta
• one head of red chycory
• 100g of bacon (*)
• 1/2 onion
• 50g of cubed melting cheese (**)
• 50ml cream
• 50ml milk
• 2 spoons olive oil
• salt and pepper

(*) this time I had only sliced bacon, however the cubed one would have been better.
(**) it is possible to use grated parmesan as an alternative

Directions

1. Heat a saucepan containing enough water to boil pasta and add some salt and pasta as soon as the water starts boiling
2. In the meantime, put the chopped onion and the oil in a frying pan and let it brown for a couple of minutes
3. Add to the frying pan the cubed bacon or the sliced bacon cut into strips and cook for other two minutes
4. Add the red chycory cut into strips and cook for other two minutes
5. Add the cream, milk and chopped or grated cheese and let the sauce cook at low temperature for about five minutes
6. When the pasta is almost cooked add a couple of pasta cooking water spoons to the sauce, drain the pasta and add it to the frying pan
7. Add some salt and pepper to adjust the sauce flavour and stir-fry the pasta until it is well mixed with the sauce
8. Enjoy your meal!

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Have you ever used red chycory salad to make some hot dishes? I would be curious to find some other ideas!