HOW TO: make homemade carbonara

A double how-to Saturday!

I first had fettucine carbonara on vacation in Brooklyn in 1999. I was hooked.

I found a recipe in my Italian cookbook and gave it a shot. The recipe wasn't as daunting as it seemed. Matt's advice beforehand was to not overcook the eggs.

Here's the gist of the recipe I used, you sizzle up some pancetta (or American bacon) in a pan, with some garlic, olive oil and wine.

In a serving bowl, you mix two eggs with some parmigiano, pepper, and parsley.

You add the freshly cooked pasta (traditionally spaghetti) to the egg/cheese bowl and toss. And then you add the bacon, dripping with wine, to the pasta/egg bowl. That's right. I had to read that a few times, the raw egg mixture doesn't touch any heat at all. You just add the hot pasta to the eggs, and then add the bacon and serve.

- - -

The only pancetta I could find, came pre-diced into tiny cubes. So I decided to use both pancetta and American bacon. Double the flavor, double the texture, right? And I swear the proportions of the recipe are way off. It called for cooking 1.25 pounds of pasta, but only using two eggs. Since I was cooking for one, I barely used .25 pound of pasta, but I still used two eggs, since the one egg seemed so lonely in the bowl. Also, I didn't really cut down the bacon in the recipe, so it was fairly heavy on the bacon. Which is a good thing.

Here's a shot of the two kinds of bacon cooking in the wine.
(1/13 - f8 - ISO1250)

The rest was straightforward. I opted for fettuccine just because I don't like spaghetti much. I cooked the pasta, tossed in the cheesy/egg bowl, and then added the bacon. I plated it, took a picture, and took a bite. It was cold. Somehow the cold egg was enough to overpower the hot pasta and the hot bacon. So I zapped it for 30 seconds.

(1/100- f4 - ISO1250)

It was good. Though I thought that it hadn't reached my expectations. It was simple, fresh, and seemed very traditionally Italian. Perhaps I'd need a second opinion. The more I ate the more I liked it. But I'm still not sure if you couldn't get a better carbonara at Olive Garden. I don't know.

I think when it's served in restaurants, it's more like a full cream sauce, basically an alfredo with bacon. Well, this one had no cream or milk or anything, just egg and cheese. And I know I didn't overcook the eggs.