Fettuccine alla Carbonara

[fuzzyred]

This week's dinner is a simple pasta dish from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.


Ingredients
6 slices bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
6 ounces dried fettuccine or linguine
1 beaten egg
1 cup half-and-half, light cream, or milk
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese
1/4 cup snipped fresh parsley
Coarsely ground black pepper

Instructions
1. Cook bacon until crisp. Drain.
2. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain; keep warm.
3. Meanwhile, for sauce, in a saucepan combine egg, half-and-half, and butter. Cook and stir over medium heat until egg mixture just coats a metal spoon (about 6 minutes); do not boil. Immediately pour over pasta; stir gently to coat.
4. Add cooked bacon, Parmesan cheese, and parsley; stir gently to combine. Season with pepper. Serve immediately.


Thoughts and Variations
I used linguine, milk, and margarine because that's what I had, and left out the parsley and pepper; the parsley because herbs from the store always go bad before I can use them all and I don't miss them, and the pepper because I plain forgot it (and I also don't like pepper that much).

The pasta and bacon parts of this recipe were dead easy, and putting the ingredients for the sauce in the pot was easy enough. However, I had to try twice before I got the sauce to work and I still don't think it was right. When it says, "do not boil," it really means it. The first time, I was cooking before my therapy appointment, and though I had my burner (gas stove) on medium, I was a bit distracted and the sauce simmered which is apparently enough to cook the egg whites and give me bits of egg floating in the sauce; that batch went down the sink. The second attempt (after therapy) went better, although I had a hard time telling when it was done and I think I went just a touch too far, even though it was only 6 minutes on medium on my simmer burner and there were no bubbles at all.

The dish was tasty enough and bacon is always a good thing, but unless you know how to cook a sauce with eggs without cooking the eggs, I'd be very careful with this one. I'm pretty sure I felt the sauce start to thicken at about 5 minutes and I think I should have pulled it then. I can never quite tell if things are actually thicker though or if I'm just imagining it, ao I left it for longer since the recipe said 6 minutes. If I do make this (or something similar) again, I'm definitely going to watch the sauce veryyyy closely amd take it off as soon as it thickens even a little bit.

Comments

[technoshaman]

The real trick to carbonara is to let the pasta cook the eggs. Here, Babish'll show you how. (Skip the first half of the vid unless you can get at least pancetta at your market; the second version is 'Murkin style.. ) https://basicswithbabish.co/basicsepisodes/carbonara (this link has the vid embedded and the text below it for easy copy-.... wait for it... pasta... )

I'm gonna have to make that when N is away and me and mdlbear can cook all the treif we want... :)

[fuzzyred]

Thanks for the link! That does seem like it might be easier to do than what I was trying. Babish's recipes also don't use milk or cream for the sauce, just the meat fat, so maybe that makes a difference too. I'll have remember this for next time I want to make carbonara.

Happy eating!