I’ve always liked carbonara. It’s one of those dishes that isn’t complicated, but is incredibly tasty. I guess it proves that you don’t need elaborate “fussy” recipes to get good, tasty food.
It’s not a super lean or low calorie dish, but it’s good quality food and free of processed junk.
And no, you don’t need mushrooms or cream to make carbonara. In fact if you add either ingredient it’s no longer carbonara.
So here’s the recipe I use. You can tweak it depending on what you can get your hands on. For example, pancetta is more widely available in Irish supermarkets these days, but it you can use bacon rashers if you need to. The more “traditional” recipes talk about using blocks of pancetta and slicing it off them, but I’ve never found pancetta for sale in Ireland in that form. If anyone knows of shops selling it please let me know via the comments!
Spaghetti Carbonara
Ingredients
- 2 - 3 eggs depending on size free range eggs are always best
- 1 - 2 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped or sliced thinly
- 1/2 packed of pancetta most packets come with two separate sections
- 100 g spaghetti
- grated parmesan freshly grated is best
- freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
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Prepare the spaghetti al dente as usual
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While the spaghetti is cooking (usually 6 to 8 minutes) fry the pancetta with garlic. You might need to add a small bit of oil to the pan, but pancetta has a lot of its own oils
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Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them. Add a bit of the black pepper and some of the parmesan
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When the spaghetti is ready drain it
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Combine the spaghetti and eggs in a large bowl, then add the pancetta with garlic.
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Mix the pancetta and garlic well so that they're relatively well mixed into the pasta
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Serve and enjoy!
I’d say that you’re recipe is absolutely on point.
Just a couple of things:
1) I wouldn’t add the oil in the pan but I would put the pancetta as is and render it at extremely low heat. They will have sufficient fat and you will know that they are ready when they start getting crunchy
2) I would deglaze the pan with a little bit of red wine and let the pancetta soak up a little bit of that red wine goodness…
3) And this is just for caution. Do not throw the cooking liquid away, but if the pasta gets on the dry side (which can happen) use a spoonful of the liquid to temper the eggs…
4) For all people out there: Do not let the eggs cook, is not pasta with scrambled eggs! grin emoticon