Pasta w/ Bacon and Shoyu

Ingredients (2 ppl)

• 120g of pasta

• 15 cherry tomatoes cut into halved

• 1/2 pack of bacon sliced into small pieces

• 6 large garlic cloves sliced

• 6 dried arbol chili or less depending on your tolerance

• 2 tbsp of shoyu (I prefer usukuchi aka dark soy sauce)

• 2 tbsp of Parmesan cheese

• 1/4 cup of chopped Italian Parsley

Steps

1. Boil your water.

2. In a pan of high heat start by frying your bacon. 5 minutes in you should start seeing oil seep out, add sliced garlic and chili then turn the heat down to low. I prefer to break the dried chili in so that it spreads evenly in the dish.

3. Stir quickly to avoid overcooking. As your bacon becomes crispy, take it out or else it will burn. At this moment place tomatoes sliced side face down into the pan and raise to medium heat. The tomato will soak in the bacon fat and the beautiful garlic smell.

4. Add your pasta into the (hopefully) boiling water. Do not salt the water as the sauce will be salty.

5. Add shoyu into the mixture in the pan. The shoyu will start to bubble with the heat so stir it into the sauce. If you feel it is too dry, add 1/2 cup of pasta water. Ensure that nothing burns by constantly stirring the ingredients.

6. When pasta is around 1 minute to aldente (or the cook time on your pasta package) add in the pasta into the sauce. Mix everything thoroughly. Add 1/4 cup of pasta water and stir.

7. Turn off heat when it is at the cook time of the pasta. Throw in the parmesarn cheese and mix. The trick for a good dish is to have freshly grated parmesarn as it will melt into the sauce.

8. You're ready to serve! Feel free to garnish with your favorite herb. Mine is Italian Parsley.