Carbonara Sauce

I know it’s hard to tell we really love Italian food.  🙂  But we cook it often.  So I thought it was time for carbonara sauce.  We had leftover pancetta and we couldn’t let it go to waste!  Once more I used Marcella Hazan’s book “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking” for the recipe.  This is the book I got the inspiration to make the cream and butter sauce.

To start I prepare the pasta using this recipe. I’ll admit I don’t like to make the spaghetti bit as the strands are so small they become annoying to handle but for this recipe you need it.

As we only had a bit of pancetta left I also used a few rashers of streaky bacon.  I chopped that up and started sauteing in a skillet.

While that was cooking I beat two eggs in a bowl and added about 1/4 cup of romano cheese and 1/2 a cup of parmesan cheese to the egg.  Then added a bit of salt and pepper and mixed everything together.

Next I added some olive oil and 4 garlic cloves minced to the skillet.  This is sauteed on medium heat.

Seriously wish I still had my sense of smell.  Bacon and garlic are made for each other.  As this was cooking I added 1/4 cup of Chablis to the mixture. At this point I brought the hot water back up to a boil and added the pasta to cook.  Because these are thin strands of pasta this will cook quickly!  Just a couple of minutes.

Once cooked I drained the pasta and tossed it in with the bacon mixture.  Then I added the egg mixture.

It’s important to toss and serve immediately.

The recipe does call for 2 T of chopped parsley but we didn’t have any.  My husband made wonderful cheesy garlic bread to go with this as well.

32 thoughts on “Carbonara Sauce

  1. This looks excellent. You must have patience to make that spaghetti though. As you will see in my blog tomorrow, I do not…ha ha ha! Still, I think we’re long-lost sisters because we cook very similar on almost the same nights. This is like the 3rd time. Which I find really cool! 🙂

  2. That’s what I made for dinner last night! I had brussels sprouts I needed to use up, and since I knew brussels sprouts are really good with bacon, I decided to try adding them. I shredded them and then just quickly sauteed them with the bacon and garlic. It was so good! I think it’s going to go into regular rotation at my house.

  3. I love Carbonara Sauce, but I’m scared of eating soft eggs… so I do not cook often carbonara sauce. Now after this beautiful picture I feel very tempted to try again! I like your home made spaghetti, they are quite difficult to handle!! I made the bread last Sunday, using your recipe. It was very good and easy to make. Toasted slices of this type of bread are perfect for BRUSCHETTA!! Thank you

Leave a Reply