In the Kitchen: Pasta Carbonara
I LOVE PASTA… Almost any pasta dish will suffice. With lots of garlic bread. And I enjoy cooking pasta dishes as they are quick, easy and sure to satisfy even the pickiest of all eaters.
I’ve been putting off doing the grocery shopping lately because I haven’t really had any pronounced cravings (oh, except Chinese food, which I had for dinner Friday night…) and I’m just too lazy today to get dressed to go to the grocery store. So I threw open the cupboards and found some angel hair pasta and some artichoke hearts. In the refrigerator, I found a wedge of parmesan cheese, garlic, bacon and eggs. WOO HOO! I had everything I needed to make Pasta Carbonara.
Yeah, I know you don’t usually put artichoke hearts in carbonara, but I’m not a big fan of peas, and I love artichoke hearts, so I’m putting artichoke hearts in my carbonara! You can put peas in yours, if you want. Or even mushrooms.
Recipes, in my opinion are merely guides and don’t need to be taken so seriously… unless you’re baking, then that’s a totally different story…
Here’s what you’ll need to make pasta carbonara for 4 to 6 people (depending on their appetites):
- 1 pound dry pasta (angel hair, spaghetti, penne or even bowties will work)
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 package of bacon (or more), sliced into small pieces (you can also use pancetta if you prefer)
- 4 cloves of garlic (or 6), minced
- 1 jar artichoke hearts, drained and washed to get out the briney-ness, or 1 cup of peas
- 2 larg eggs
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley
So what you want to do is prepare the sauce while the pasta is cooking.
Timing is everything with this dish. You want the sauce and the pasta to be ready at about the same time as the heat from the pasta will help to cook the eggs in the sauce.
Ready… here’s how it’s done….
First, get a large pot of water boiling. Once it starts to boil, add some salt to the water, then add the pasta. Cook the pasta for about 10 minutes (depending on what type of pasta you use). Once the pasta is done, drain it, saving about a cup of the pasta water, just in case you might need it for the sauce.
Next, in a separate mixing bowl, scramble the eggs with a little bit of salt and pepper. Add the parmesan cheese to the eggs and mix well to spread out the cheese and break up clumps. Put this on the side while you work on the rest of the sauce.
In a pretty big pot (one that will able to accommodate the cooked pasta), heat the oil then add the bacon and cook the bacon until it is crisp but not burnt. Add the garlic and saute altogether for about a minute or so, until the garlic is soft, but not burnt – or else you’ll have to start all over again. Burnt garlic = yucky, bitter pasta. To this garlicky bacon, add the artichokes (or the peas if you prefer).
Next, add the hot, drained pasta to the pot with the bacon and garlic and toss the pasta in the bacon fat, making sure that everything is all bacony and greasy. Remove the pot from the heat and pour the cheesy egg mixture into the bacony garlicky pasta and STIR UNTIL YOUR ARM NEARLY FALLS OFF.
You need to keep on stirring to incorporate the cheesy egg mixture into the pasta to 1) “cook” the eggs and 2) prevent the eggs from becoming scrambled eggs. So stir until all the eggs are mixed in and forming the sauce. If the sauce is too dry to your liking, add the pasta water that you reserved, a little at a time until you get it how you like it. Add the chopped parsley and stir again, but not so vigorously. You just want to mix it all in. Unfortunately I didn’t have any parsley, and this made all the difference in flavor, but was good, just the same.
Serve with more cheese.
Enjoy!