HOW TO: homemade carbonara round two

My first attempt at homemade carbonara was fine, but it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. Since I still had some pancetta leftover, I tried again.

The first time around, I went with two kinds of bacon, just egg and cheese in the bowl, and served immediately after tossing the pasta and bacon in the egg mixture.

This time I went with straight up pancetta. I cooked it a bit longer to get it crispier, and draw out more flavor. The longer cooking time meant more wine was able to be added and absorbed into the meat. I also used some garlic powder to coat the pancetta, which browns on the outside of the meat nicely.

The biggest variation was that used a decent amount of heavy cream, in addition to my eggs and parmigiano reggiano. Also, once I tossed the pasta in the egg/cream, I returned everything to the bacon pan. The cream sauce absorbed the wine and bacon grease and turned a beautiful brownish color.

(1/100 - f4 - ISO2000)

As you can see, it's a lot creamier than the last time around. Which was the goal. Although it wasn't quite thick enough for my taste. And even though spaghetti is the traditional pairing for carbonara, it wasn't ideal for holding sauce.

Frankly, even though it looked great, and everything that went into it was great (cream, cheese, eggs, pancetta, wine--what's not to like?) it tasted a little bland.

Perhaps there's a way to let the sauce thicken (or maybe I just needed less cream) and add more flavor? It's good, but for the effort and the expense and the fattiness of the ingredients, I'm expecting something more.