I love carbonara. It's fast, simple and cheap, yet very filling, warm and comforting. I generally don't like it when I get it at a restaurant which is surprising to me because it is so easy to make! Today we used bacon rather than pancetta for a few reasons. We have tried both in this dish, and I prefer bacon. Also at the store I went to, they didn't have the really good pancetta, only the thin round kind which I am not a fan of. Thirdly, we watched Giada at Home the other day and saw Aunt Raffi saying that when she is in the US, she uses bacon instead of pancetta because in the finished dish it tastes more "like it did back in Italy." Those are enough reasons for me, so here is my recipe for pasta in the style of the coal miner's wife.
We also made garlic bread. We make it different every time. Today it was very cheesy. Oh, and about the parsley, use flat leaf. It's sometimes hard to find here hence the curly.
Usually we use raw garlic on garlic bread. Sometimes we use roasted. Today we wanted to try cooking the garlic in butter for 5 minutes to remove the raw garlic flavor.
The butter garlic mixture with some parsley added.
Crushed red pepper on top and ready for the oven.
My favorite pasta for this dish is linguine. Bucatini (shown here) is a decent substitute and fun to use occasionally.
I slice the bacon in half the long way, and then cut small pieces the short way. This is one pound of bacon minus 6 pieces for breakfast tomorrow. Get thick sliced bacon.
When the bacon has about 7 minutes left, I drop the pasta and add a few pieces of diced onion to the bacon.
When the pasta has 1 minute left, add garlic to the bacon.
Work quickly now. Add the pasta right into the bacon/bacon fat.
cup and a half of cream and 4 eggs. The eggs have been sitting out for at least 4 hours so they are room temperature before cracking them and mixing with the cream. This is pretty important.
3/4 cup of parm.
Stir the pasta into the bacon for about 30 seconds.
This bowl has been warmed until you are just barely able to hold it. Dump the pasta in and quickly add the egg and cream mixture. Stir to combine. The heat from the pasta will cook the eggs.
Add the parsley.
And cheese.
And keep stirring.
Yum.
Top with more parsley and cheese and cracked black pepper.
Recipe
Bring water to boil in pasta pot with salt.
Dice ¾ pound of bacon (or all if you want) and cook on med-high.
Meanwhile, mix 4 ROOM TEMP eggs with cup and a half of cream or half and half.
Dice parsley, grate parm, dice clove of garlic and ¼ of onion.
When bacon starts browning and looks like it could be almost done, add pasta to water and cook for 2 minutes less than box instructions.
Add onion to bacon with 5 minutes remaining on pasta.
Add garlic to bacon with one minute remaining on pasta.
Add pasta to bacon. Stir to coat.
Add pasta and egg mixture to warm bowl. Stir to coat.
Add parsley and cheese and keep stirring. Allow 5 minutes before serving.
I have to stop coming to this website. It's Food Porn.
i would eat this everyday, if i could.
Nononono! No cream in real carbonara! Heathen! NOOOOOOO.....
hey now PJ! haha yea i understand there isnt cream in REAL real real carbonara, but this is the way I like it. I have seen many recipes with cream in it, so dont you think heathen is a little strong of a word? I would have accepted infidel, skeptic, or unenlightened.... but heathen????
Last night, I made a real Bootleg version of this with chicken, too.
If you think Dan's a Heathen...
I used a pound of regular spaghetti, I fried up some garlic and butter for garlic bread and made garlic bread almost exactly like this, then fried up some shredded up bacon in that same pan, on top of the bacon, fat/grease and all, I added a store-bought jar of Bertolli Alfredo sauce and mixed all that around, and cooked up a package of store-bought pre-cooked grilled chicken and combined the bacon/alfredo/grease mix with the chicken and pasta and had cheesy garlic bread on the side. It was absolutely delicious and completely not good for you, but I was at least inspired from you, Dan, to sort of try to make this dish..
Yum!
Rich - Im glad to inspire you to cook, even though what you made was in no way shape or form carbonara!
You really need a place to click where I can either print the recipes or archive them for myself, I'm sick of writing all these down!!! Looks awesome, it's what's for dinner tonight!!
Doesn't this dish usually have green peppers in it. Well if you don't make it that way you should try it at least once. I think it is pretty damn good with peppers.
My arteries hardened just lookin' at this dish, and I think I gained 10 virtual pounds. But I'm going cook it up anyway, it looks amazing. Might have to lay back off the butter & bacon oil though...thanks for sharing the tips on how to make a true cabonara!