Just Love Spaghetti Carnbonara .............?!
Answers: Usually eat it at the local Italian but would love it at home now and again ..... anyone please give me a home recipe including the exact type of spaghetti to use. Also, is dry or fresh pasta best for this? Thanks
Spaghetti Carbonara is one of my favorite pasta dishes. The authentic version uses pancetta, although if you can't find it and need to use regular bacon, you certainly can. It's traditionally made with spaghetti noodles, because the rounder, fatter pasta pairs well with the rich, thick sauce. If you can find fresh spaghetti, or can make it yourself, I prefer it - it just adds a more rustic flavor to the dish - there is really no substitute for fresh pasta. Unfortunately, most people won't take the time to make it, and the easiest found, store-bought fresh pasta is linguine, angel hair, tortellini, and ravioli - at least where I live!
Spaghetti Alla Carbonara
1 pound dry spaghetti
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces pancetta or slab bacon, cubed or sliced into small strips
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large eggs
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for serving
Freshly ground black pepper
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Prepare the sauce while the pasta is cooking to ensure that the spaghetti will be hot and ready when the sauce is finished; it is very important that the pasta is hot when adding the egg mixture, so that the heat of the pasta cooks the raw eggs in the sauce.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until tender yet firm (as they say in Italian "al dente.") Drain the pasta well, reserving 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking water to use in the sauce if you wish.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium flame. Add the pancetta and saute for about 3 minutes, until the bacon is crisp and the fat is rendered. Toss the garlic into the fat and saute for less than 1 minute to soften.
Add the hot, drained spaghetti to the pan and toss for 2 minutes to coat the strands in the bacon fat. Beat the eggs and Parmesan together in a mixing bowl, stirring well to prevent lumps. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the egg/cheese mixture into the pasta, whisking quickly until the eggs thicken, but do not scramble (this is done off the heat to ensure this does not happen.) Thin out the sauce with a bit of the reserved pasta water, until it reaches desired consistency. Season the carbonara with several turns of freshly ground black pepper and taste for salt. Mound the spaghetti carbonara into warm serving bowls and garnish with chopped parsley. Pass more cheese around the table.
Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday!
Cooks.com has a number of different recipes for Spaghetti Carbonara. But keep in mind that recipes are essentially nothing more than guidelines. You can usually substitute ingredients if you don't have something on hand - for example, if the recipe calls for basil and you only have oregano.
Typically, I would recommend fresh pasta, simply because the quality is *usually* going to be better. As for the exact type of spaghetti... Spaghetti refers to a specific type of noodle (i.e., the spaghetti noodle.) There are other, similar noodles that could feasibly work as well (capellini, otherwise known as angel hair, is one of them.)
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,sp...
You buy good quality dried pasta, Italians often use dried pasta, and I think that dried spaghetti is better.
This is my own makey up recipe, its really easy and quick and tastes great.
Fry a clove of chopped clove of garlic, a handful of mushrooms, add a little grated nutmeg, 1/4 tsp mustard, salt, pepper, a tub of creme fraiche, some chopped smoked sausage, a tin of sweetcorn, seperate the yolks from 2 eggs and add the yolks only, stir like mad, and add a handful of grated parmesan, then mix through until the cheese is melted, and stir through spaghetti cooked al dente, keeping a bit of parmesan to sprinkle on top. Delicious!
My own carbonara recipe, sorry can not give you exact measurements coz I always just 'eyeball' the amounts: sautee chopped onions and garlic and cut up bacon, (careful not to burn the garlic, add it last). Drain all fat, add heavy cream & milk (or half and half), parmesan cheese, fresh ground black pepper and a pinch of seasoned salt. Cook the spagetti according to the directions. I like angel hair best, fresh pasta is great but dry is so much cheaper... Add drained pasta, heat thru and remove from heat. Add 1 egg per person eating, stir. Sprinkle with more parmesan after plating, if you like. My boyfriend and the kids love this recipe.
I love it too! Here's an article on this dish.
I crush an entire garlic clove and let it cook with the bacon, then take it out before stirring with the cream, beaten egg yolks, black pepper.
One of the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks suggests cooking the bacon in EVOO then stirring in with the pasta and egg mixture, but it makes the dish too oily.
Spaghetti carbonara
Serves 1
Preparation time less than 30 mins
Cooking time 10 to 30 mins
Ingredients
? onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
4 slices bacon, chopped
150ml/5fl oz double cream
2 eggs
handful basil, chopped
140g/5oz spaghetti
Method
1. Soften the onions in a pan with the oil for two minutes.
2. Add the garlic and bacon and fry for another 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the cream to the pan and then the eggs.
4. Cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions and drain.
5. Add the spaghetti to the pan with the sauce and stir through to coat the pasta.
6. Stir in the basil and serve.
Will let others give recipes as the basic carbonara is fairly straightforward. What I will chip in on is general ingredients.
Use pancetta not bacon. You have posted in YA! UK so I will assume you are in the UK and therefore pancetta is fairly easy to get in any of the big supermarkets here (Sainsbury's 100%). Buy the cubed stuff if you can... or better still try a local deli for the real stuff cut to order.
Whatever you do don't use cream... this is an Americanisation/Anglification of the dish. Cooking with cream is not exactly common in central Italy.
Use fresh parmesan... not the yucky dried and ready grated stuff in a tub.
Dried pasta is fine... but try to get one that looks slightly rough on the surface... this helps the stuff stick to it and is (usually) better quality... and don't overcook it LOL
Now pick a recipe and go for it