Pasta with Broccoli and Lemon Sauce

I have one child who is a pasta addict and hates fish. Can you guess who it is? Yes, the Clone. The girl can eat spaghetti everyday. So just for a change because even I get tired of cooking the tomato sauce variety sometimes, we decided to try this recipe (Zucchini Carbonara) from Good Cooking - the new basics by Jill Dupleix. This cookbook is one of our best finds on the bargain section. We have cooked several recipes from this book and they are all good. This is one of them. The recipe is called zucchini carbonara, but when I got ready to make this I realized I only had broccoli on hand. We have since tried it with zucchini and it's even better! Note: I made this for five pasta eating people, so I actually doubled the proportions in the book. Hubby also had to have some meat so I added sliced, pan fried chicken breasts. This version is what I made.

INGREDIENTS:
16 oz (1 lb) penne pasta
Sea salt and coarsely ground black Pepper
1 bundle of broccoli (florets only, save stems for another recipe)
5 egg yolks
3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
Pan Fried (can also be grilled) chicken breasts, sliced

Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water until they are al dente, between 8 to 10 minutes. Add the broccoli florets in with the pasta for the last minute of cooking, just until the broccoli takes on a bright green color before removing the pasta and broccoli from the water.

While the pasta is boiling, mix in a large bowl the egg yolks, parmesan cheese, lemon zest, sea salt and pepper together (see first photo). When the pasta and broccoli are done, drain them from the boiling water and quickly add to the mixture in the bowl and mix. Add some of the cooking water if the mixture/sauce seems too thick. The heat from the pasta and cooking water cooks the eggs in the sauce. The sauce should be creamy and fragrant. Either stir in the chicken pieces or just lay them on top of the pasta. Sprinkle with additional parmesan cheese if desired.

Jade also made this dish on her own using zucchini: