Tag Archives: carbonara

Carbonara With A Twist

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I wish that spring lasted longer here.  Winter lasts way too long and summer is always anxious to arrive.  We have been holding off putting in the A/Cs but we might not make it until the end of June like we are hoping.  Yesterday was a scorcher!  I fear summer will be a bit much.

Needless to say my long list for yesterday didn’t get done!  Partly because I grossly underestimated how long it would take to clean out our closet.  Hours!  Just as well as it was to hot to bake.  Hopefully I’ll get that done today.  Wouldn’t want the kids to starve.  🙂

And I didn’t want to be standing over a hot stove either.  We have some black garlic and proscuitto on hand and carbonara is a quick dish to make.  Time for a twist on a great dish!

Carbonara with a twist 1 2015Prep everything ahead of time as this does not take long to cook.  In a bowl whisk three eggs together with salt and pepper.  Great about a cup of aged cheese together.  I used pecorino, parmesan, and romano cheese for this dish.  Cube the proscuitto, about 1/2 -3/4 cups worth.  I finely chopped two bulbs of black garlic and garlic chives.  I love having the fresh herbs from our garden again!

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Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and slowly saute the garlic. Don’t have the heat higher than medium.  While this is cooking, cook the pasta.  When the pasta is halfway cooked add the proscuitto and chive to the skillet.  The trick with the proscuitto is that you don’t want to overcook it or the flavour will get really strong.

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Add a 1/2 cup of dry white wine and lightly simmer.

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Once the pasta is cooked add it to the skillet and mix well.  Turn off the heat and add the egg and cheese mixture to the skillet.

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Toss and serve immediately.  Garnish with fresh basil and grated cheese.

Carbonara with a twist 6 2015

This is a dish with strong flavours and is great with homemade ciabatta bread.  Here is how to make the traditional carbonara dish.  Both great for when it’s too hot to be standing over a hot stove!

Carbonara Sauce

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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.