I’ve had a packet of pastina, or tiny pasta, in the back of the press for months. I bought it in a posh supermarket in a moment of weakness, thinking that Boy Wonder would be a fan of the cute little pasta stars.

After consulting the internet, I found a traditional Italian comfort food recipe that I thought would work nicely, and was almost like a stripped down carbonara.

How cute are those stars?

It’s the first time I’ve used the absorption method with pasta, and it definitely needs more attention than with regular ol’ boiling or it’ll glue itself to the bottom of the pot.

The pasta is cooked in a small amount of chicken stock from one of my trusty cubes. It needs frequent stirring, and cooking times vary wildly depending on brand and shape.

After 8 minutes, I had this.

In with a big fistful of parmesan, pepper and a sprinkle of lemon zest. Stir the daylights out of it, and then mix in a beaten egg and some lemon juice and work out those arm muscles.

Ta dah.

I’m very glad I didn’t add the entire half lemon of juice – it would have been complete overkill. I didn’t have any parsley, so I left it out.

I liked this a lot, but I was entirely alone in this. HusBeast didn’t like the lemon, or the teeny pasta – it was too like and unlike rice. Boy Wonder thought it was mashed potato, took one spoon and declared it a nope.

I might look up a soul recipe for the other half of the bag…