1 lb spaghetti (thin), rotini or equival, ent pasta
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb pancetta or bacon
1 medium yellow onion (chopped)
1/2 cup cold water
1/4 cup italian white wine, dry
4 eggs
4 tbsp heavy cream
8 tbsp parmesan cheese (grated)
Directions
Put large bowl in oven to warm at lowest possible setting. Soak
chopped onion in cold water for 15 minutes to reduce pungency. Chop
Pancetta or bacon into 1/4-inch x 1-inch strips.
Beat eggs and cream together with a fork. Add about 4 T Parmesan
cheese to the mixture.
Wash pasta. Put on water to cook pasta. Add pasta when boiling. In
the meantime...
Dry onions and saute with pancetta or bacon in olive oil until onions
are barely translucent. Add wine and reduce heat when initial
boiling ceases. Meat should not be crisp.
When pasta is cooked, drain, but DO NOT WASH. Quickly remove bowl
from oven, put pasta in it and toss with egg, cream and cheese
mixture so that heat from pasta cooks eggs. Add meat, onions and wine
without draining fat and toss until thoroughly mixed. Sprinkle
remaining cheese to taste, toss and serve immediately.
NOTES:
* Spaghetti Carbonara, Neapolitan Style -- My wife and I had the
pleasure of staying at the Villa Virgiliana (owned by The Vergilian
Society) in Cuma, Italy just outside of Naples in June, 1985. Biagio
and Maria Sgariglia, the proprietors of the villa, served us
excellent Italian farm meals for a week, each meal being more
delicious than the last. This dish was the gastronomic highlight of
our stay.
* Pasta should be cooked AL DENTE so that it offers resistance to the
teeth without crunching. Fresh pasta is desirable (dried pasta is a
poor imitation of the real thing.) Pasta should be used immediately
when done so as to stop its internal cooking. If both portions of the
recipe cannot be completed at the same time, the meat and onion
mixture should finish first.
* I have made a very successful variation on this using hot country
sausage. Make sure the sausage is fairly lean if you try it, however.
All of the quantities are adjustable and may depend on the kind of
pasta or meat you use. Too much cream will cause the egg mixture to
separate from the pasta and meat. Too little cream will essentially
give you scrambled eggs and bacon with pasta.
: Difficulty: moderate to hard (timing is critical).
: Time: 30 minutes.
: Precision: measure the ingredients.
: Byron Howes
: North Carolina Education Computing Service, Research Triangle Park,
NC : bch@ecsvax or {akgua,decvax}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust
Servings: 3 servings
Biagio's Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Italian; Pasta
The History of Recipes
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In fact, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to historians is a series of stone tablets in ancient Sumerian describing the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel exhilarated. Later, there are a couple of recipe books published in the fourteenth century ; one book called `Forme of Cury`, and another called `Curye on Inglish`. Don`t be fooled by the titles though, these two books are nothing to do with the indian curry that is familiar to us all today, but instead descriptions of the types of meals on the menus of the nobility of that time. Later, in the fifteenth century, the Crusaders brought back a variety of foods and spices from middle-east cuisine, including spices like basil and coriander. These new culinary innovations led to a surge in recipe books, most of which are kept safe in academic collections. For the decades that followed, the powerful families of the West competed to serve the most extravagent banquests, and because of this the best chefs and their recipe collections were greatly in demand. Notwithstanding that, it was during the 1800s that cookery and recipe books became popular. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, dedicated the best years of their lives to assembling, trying out, and recording recipes common in their social group. By the time we get to the 1900s, recipe books are highly popular as a result of higher levels of literacy, people having increased spare time and having more money. The arrival of television brought us TV cooks and the demand for the spin-off recipe books. Which pretty much brings us up to date and the internet revolution, permitting everyone to search through massive numbers of recipes just like those on our site. |
We hope you enjoy this Biagio's Spaghetti Carbonara recipe.
