Spaghetti Carbonara

Have you read any Ruth Reichl books? I just love her.

She first came into my orbit because I spent lots of time watching PBS and her Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie was in the Saturday line up. Someday I will have to tell you about my weird fascination with This Old House.

Most of her books are memoirs that also revolve around food and have recipes sprinkled in them. Food memoirs and very much in my wheelhouse.

It was one of her books (I can’t remember which one) where I came across a spaghetti carbonara recipe, and I thought maybe I should try this. I am sure I had come across a recipe for this before and not given it a second glance because, to be fair, the ingredient list seems weird. At least it does for me as a child of sturdy Germanic stock.

What got me is how simple the recipe is and how all of the ingredients are generally things I already have in the kitchen. I also though, all of the components are awesome separately, they have to be good together, right?

I still remember the first time I made this. My dad was there, sitting in the kitchen, watching me cook and asking a million questions. He was a little freaked out when I cracked the eggs in the bowl and he put it all together.

I told him it would be fine and to shut the hell up. I used a nastier word, but don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Dad.

A few weeks later he was asking me to make spaghetti carbonara again.

I have been making this for years now, and it has morphed from the original recipe slightly, I use an extra egg and a lot more bacon.

Obvs.

Print Recipe

Spaghetti Carbonara

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: pasta

Servings: 4 hearty servings

Ingredients

• 1 lb spaghetti
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 4 eggs
• 1 lb bacon
• black pepper
• 1/2 cup grated parm

Instructions

• Fill up a large stock pot with salted water, put on the stove to boil. When the water is boiling, throw the pasta in and cook according to package instruction. This is usually about 10 minutes.
• Slice the bacon into bite sized pieces, place in a saute pan with the two cloves of garlic. Turn the pan on low to fry the bacon. Cook until the edges just begin to crisp up. Remove the garlic from the bacon.
• While the bacon is cooking and the pasta boiling, crack the eggs into a large bowl. Beat them with a fork and crack some fresh black pepper in the bowl.
• When the pasta is done cooking, drain and quickly add to the egg mixture. Mix throughly. Add the bacon (and the fat) mix again. Then sprinkle the parm on top.

Notes

adapted from Ruth Reichl.

Photo by Pinar Kucuk on Unsplash

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