Chicken and Asparagus Carbonara

A really quick and really tasty meal, after a little prep it only takes as long as the pasta takes to cook!
The idea for this recipe is completely ripped off from Donna Hay creamy asparagus pasta however we didn't have any cream and we needed to use up some chicken.  So rather than a cream based pasta sauce I thought I'd try and recreate the creaminess like you do with a carbonara sauce using only egg...

Ingredients

•  Chicken breast
• Asparagus
• Pasta (we used gluten free fettuccine)
• Egg(s)
• Parmesan cheese
• Lemon (for zest and juice)
• Salt & Pepper
• Chopped parsley
• Butter

Method

1. Chop chicken into cubes, cut the asparagus spears into three or four pieces (after removing the bottom bit) and zest the lemon
2. Crack your egg(s) into a bowl, add grated cheese, salt and pepper and beat it with a fork or whisk till combined
3. Add pasta to a pot of boiling water (preferably one that can have a steamer basket) at about the same time add the chicken into a fry pan with a little oil
4. With about 5 min to go on the pasta, start steaming the asparagus and add some butter and the lemon zest to the fry pan (now on a low heat)
5. Add some lemon juice to the egg mixture and whisk it through
6. When the past is done turn off the fry pan (yes I do mean the fry pan), add the asparagus to the fry pan, and drain the pasta (saving some of the water
7. Add a little water to the fry pan and then add the drained pasta and stir through a little
8. Now add the egg mixture and stir through (you need to make sure the pan has cooled sufficiently to do this, if it is too hot then the egg will scramble) and the hot pasta and sauce will cook the egg
9. Add the parsley at some point while stirring through the egg and then serve.  Add some pepper, extra parmesan and lemon juice to finish.

Notes

We used one chicken breast and 2 eggs for two people which worked out about right with myself being a bigish eater.  The butter is added because a carbonara sauce usually makes use of the fat that is rendered when cooking down whatever cured pork is being used which chicken breast usually doesn't provide.  Because it only used parmesan cheese it should be pretty much lactose free.