Spaghetti Alla Carbonara
Why I Love This Recipe
This is my take on Linguini Carbonara; I prefer the Spaghetti, I believe this holds the sauce better. Sometimes, when I make this for more carnivorous persons, I add meatballs. I "cheat" when I do this. I will use either hot or sweet Italian sausage and squeeze the meat out of the casing to form the meatballs. I learned this trick from Jamie Oliver on a segment he did on Late Night with David Letterman. I cook the meatballs in the same skillet as the pancetta, I just start them about 4 minutes earlier, since they take a little longer to cook.
Ingredients You'll Need
Extra Virgin Olive oil
3-4 oz Pancetta, small cube (You can use bacon if you like)
1 Large egg
3 Large egg yolk
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
6 Sprigs of flat leafed parsley, 3 chopped fine and 3 chopped coarse
4 oz Pecorino Romano, finely grated; divided
1/3 cup White Wine (Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc)
Fresh Cracked Black Pepper (Lots and lots of Black Pepper)
16 oz Spaghetti Rigati or regular Spaghetti or Linguini
Directions
Fill a large kettle with water and bring to a boil with the cover on.
Heat some Extra Virgin Olive oil in a frying pan.
In a bowl place egg, egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, fine chopped parsley & half of the Pecorino and whisk well.
Liberally salt the boiling water and drop the pasta; stir to coat so pasta cooks evenly, re-cover for about 1-2 minutes to allow the water to come back to a boil, then uncover again.
Add the pancetta to the pan and sauté until crispy.
Deglaze the pan with a 1/3 cup wine scraping the fond from the bottom of the pan.
Let wine reduce slightly too about 1/4 cup.
Remove from heat and mix in a lot of freshly ground pepper.
When the pasta is al dente remove 1/4 cup of the cooking water, drain the pasta and add to the bowl along with the wine reduction and toss twice to coat the pasta and incorporate the pancetta.
Add the egg mixture to the bowl and toss quickly and thoroughly. (The retained heat of the pasta will cook the eggs and thicken the sauce.)
If the sauce becomes too ‘thick’ then add some of the reserved cooking water until it becomes smooth and silky.
Sprinkle over the rest of the Pecorino and coarsely chopped Parsley
Serve immediately!