Biagio's Spaghetti Carbonara

* Exported from MasterCook *

BIAGIO'S SPAGHETTI CARBONARA

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 3 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Pasta Italian
Usenet

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 lb Spaghetti (thin),
-rotini or equivalent
-pasta
2 tb Olive oil
1/2 lb Pancetta or bacon
1 md Yellow onion
-(chopped)
1/2 c Cold water
1/4 c Italian white wine,
-dry
4 Eggs
4 tb Heavy cream
8 tb Parmesan cheese
-(grated)

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



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