Cozy Comfort Food: Fettuccine Carbonara
With a short list of ingredients, carbonara seems like a piece of cake to make. Wrong. It requires some subtley and patience, two characteristics I often lack when it comes to cooking. I attempted to make a carbonara several months ago and essentially ended up with a bowl full of pasta and scrambled eggs. Not cool.
There's also a lot of debate regarding which ingredients should be used to make a traditional carbonara (e.g., Oil, butter, neither? Pancetta, bacon, guanciale? Add garlic and onions or not? Oh, and it must be made with spaghetti, not other pasta. Etc.). I read my share of controversial articles detailing the sacrilege of each, started to feel overwhelmed with decisions, and decided to just do what I could with the ingredients I had on hand, bracing myself for the attention to detail this dish would require. I'd had carbonara on the brain for days, so this dish simply had to happen.
Sick with a bad cold, pretty hungry and in need of comfort food, I wondered if it would be worth all the tedium. Well, it certainly was and it made for a cozy couch companion on a cool Friday night...along with my Friends DVDs, Kleenex and vitamin C-packed juice.
Fettuccine Carbonara
Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. spaghetti, fettuccine, or other long straight pasta
1/4 c. bacon, pancetta or guanciale, diced
2 eggs
pasta water
1/2 c. good quality Parmesan cheese, grated
salt/pepper, to taste
Method:
1. While dicing pork, bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Add diced pork to a hot saute pan large enough to fit all of the pasta. Add pasta to boiling water.
2. Whisk two eggs into a large measuring cup or bowl. As starchy water accumulates in the pasta water, carefully add a a tiny bit to the eggs, whisking as you pour in the water. Continue to do this, small spoonfuls at a time, constantly stirring until the eggs have been somewhat heated (probably using about 1/2 c. of pasta water). This is important so you don't end up with scrambled egg pasta!
3. Once the pasta is al dente (about 8-9 minutes) and the pork is browned but not burnt with ample grease in the pan, remove pasta from water, reserving the pasta water. Add 1/4 c. of pasta water to the pork and stir to mix the grease and water, then add the pasta, stiring again to fully coat the pasta. Remove pan from heat.
4. Slowly pour in the egg and pasta water mixture to the pasta, stirring constantly. Continue stirring to prevent eggs from sticking. Add cheese and more pasta water as necessary to thing out the sauce. I found that it helped to just keep stirring throughout the entire process.
4. Add salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste and top with more Parmesan cheese.
