Food 52

Smoked Salmon and Chevre Carbonara

I lived in Alaska for 6 years, and after our summer trips to the Copper River, we cooked salmon in just about every way under the midnight sun. My favorite preparation was always hard smoked salmon. The idea for this particular recipe came to me when I was enjoying a bagel with hard-smoked salmon, chevre, and chives and I had a gut feeling it would be a good pasta combo. Here, I used Mark Bittman's Carbonara recipe as the foundation but instead of using bacon or pancetta, I used smoked salmon and instead of parmesan, I used goat cheese. It is creamy but still manages to taste light. You could add more salmon or cheese to your liking to beef it up a bit, but I lean towards a lighter hand when it comes to smoked salmon and this recipe reflects that.