Spaghettini Carbonara ©

A quick and easy recipe!

For 3-4 Persons

For more you just double up the recipe 🙂

Ingredients 

250g Spaghettini No 3

300g Top quality bacon ( Hungarian)

2 tbs olive oil

2 yolks

125 ml Cream

100g finely grated Parmesan

1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp Freshly grated black pepper

Method

1. Put saucepan of salted water onto boil for pasta. Place serving dish to warm in oven 50.C.

2. Place olive oil in frying pan and add bacon cut into “Lardons.”

3. Fry until golden and crispy, 8-10 minutes. Pour into sieve over a bowl and leave to drain. Reserve oil for future roasting.

4. In a bowl, grate parmesan on fine grater, add egg yolks, cream, salt and pepper.Mix well.

5. When pasta is ‘al dente’, drain and immediately place in warmed serving dish.

6. Add cream mixture toss and add crispy bacon last.

7. Serve immediately!

COOKERY  TERM : “Lardon” is a specially cured larding bacon, cut into strips aprox. 2 cm long, 1/2 cm wide/thick. In this case it is used in Carbonara, otherwise you can use it to “Lard” a piece of meet which has no fat, by sewing on only the fat, to tenderize it during cooking.

“Aerate” is to add air to something, for example a cake or in order to slightly cool when adding eggs.

Choose a good quality bacon, Hungarian is excellent.

Cut into ‘Lardons’ using a pair of Scissors.

Place in non-stick frying pan with just a touch of oil and fry over a strong heat, stirring to separate bacon.

Fry until golden and crispy. Use a sieve-lid if it spits. ( A Sieve-lid is a flat large sieve which you can put

over a frying pan and it lets the steam out, but stops the oil spitting every where…..a photo will follow.

Once it reaches the right color, place sieve over heat resistant bowl and pour bacon into sieve.

Leave to allow bacon to go really crispy and drain.

When fat is cold, store in fridge and use  for fat when you next roast a chicken.

If you wish, once it is well drained you can keep the bacon warm in the oven, but usually the pasta is near

ready, so it is not necessary.

Grate parmesan on fine grater and add egg yolks.

Add cream, salt and freshly ground pepper.

Beat together with a fork.

Pasta nearly ready! Try a strand a little before the cooking time is up, as it is VERY IMPORTANT not to over

cook the pasta. It needs to be ‘just’ cooked, still a little firm, if it is over-cooked, the Carbonara will be ‘heavy.’

The correct cooking of the pasta is as important as the sauce !

Drain quickly in colander, place immediately in warmed serving dish and add cream  and egg mixture. Turn

over and over with a fork. The heat of the pasta cooks the egg yolks. By aerating with a fork the egg does

not curdle, because the air cools the pasta, enough not to over cook the egg. If you don’t do this fork action

the egg may over-cook and form little balls of egg yolk. It should look creamy as above.

Lastly, sprinkle crispy bacon on top, mix only, just as you are serving, so that the bacon keeps it’s crispiness.

Eat straight away.

If guests may run late, cook pasta, after they have arrived, having pre-prepared your eggs and cream and keeping

your bacon warm on kitchen paper on a plate in the oven.