Pasta with Pork in Tomato and Cream Sauce

The bacon exists for fat and smoke, not bulk — 70g rendered in the pan gives you a cooking fat with more character than plain oil, and that fat is what the onion and garlic fry in later. This is the same economy that sits behind a British bacon sandwich or the lardons in a dauphinoise: a small amount of cured pork seasons a much bigger dish by proxy. If you haven't got bacon, pancetta does the same job with a cleaner cure; a dry-cured streaky from any supermarket deli counter is fine. Leave it out entirely and fry the onion in butter instead — you lose the smoke, not the dish.

Pork tenderloin (sometimes sold as pork fillet) is the right cut because it's lean and cooks in minutes, which matters here since it goes into the pan twice. A shoulder or diced leg would need real braising time the rest of the recipe doesn't have room for — don't substitute those and expect the same timing. If tenderloin isn't available, a boneless loin steak sliced thin works, though it's drier and will want the sauce time kept shorter rather than longer.

The flour-salt-pepper dredge is doing exactly what it does in a roast gravy: seasoning that sticks to the surface and a starch that browns. Plain flour is the only sensible choice — nothing fancy needed, this isn't a batter.

Tomatoes and cream together are the hinge of the sauce. Canned chopped tomatoes give acidity and body cheaply and reliably — fresh tomatoes out of season in the UK are watery and flavourless, which is exactly why tinned became the kitchen standard here, not snobbery, just better tomatoes year-round from somewhere warmer. The cream's job is to round off that acidity so the sauce reads as rich rather than sharp; double cream is used because it has enough fat to not split when it meets hot tomato acid — a thinner cream risks curdling into visible flecks instead of binding smooth. If cream isn't in the house, crème fraîche does the same acid-resistance job and adds a slight tang of its own; milk will not — it splits.

Oregano and thyme, dried rather than fresh, because dried herbs released their flavour slowly into a simmering sauce is exactly the job they're suited for — fresh herbs burn off fast and are better saved, as this recipe does, for scattering at the end where their smell still matters.

Spinach goes in at the very last moment, off heat or near it, because it collapses in under a minute — cook it any longer in that hot sauce and you get grey wilted rags instead of a few bright green leaves holding their shape through the pasta. This is the same reason you add spinach to a curry or a saag at the end, not the start: it has almost no structure to lose, so don't give it time to lose it.

Parmesan at the table rather than in the pot is not a stylistic flourish — grated fresh over a hot bowl, it melts slightly and smells of itself; cooked into the sauce it just thickens things and goes stringy or gritty depending on the cheese. Buy a block and grate it yourself if you can — the pre-grated bags in British supermarkets are often cut with anti-caking starch and melt less cleanly.

And patience is the one ingredient the list doesn't print: the sauce needs its own quiet simmering time to taste of tomato rather than tin, the pasta needs watching rather than a timer alarm, and the meat needs to go back in gently rather than being boiled hard to "catch up." Rush any one of those and the other two can't save it.