Subject: RECIPE: Spaghetti Carbonara, Neapolitan Style
From: bch@ecsvax (Byron C. Howes)
Date: 21 Feb 86 05:16:36 GMT
Newsgroups: mod.recipes

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.RH MOD.RECIPES-SOURCE CARBONARA M "10 Feb 86" 1986
.RZ "BIAGIO'S SPAGHETTI CARBONARA" "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.
.IH "Serves 3 to 4 people"
.IG "1 pound" "thin spaghetti, rotini or equivalent pasta" "500 g"
.IG "2 Tbsp" "olive oil" "30 ml"
.IG "\(12 lb" "pancetta or bacon" "250 g"
.IG "1" "medium yellow onion"
(chopped)
.IG "\(12 cup" "cold water" "125 ml"
.IG "\(14 cup" "dry Italian white wine" "60 ml"
.IG "4" "eggs"
.IG "4 Tbsp" "heavy cream" "60 ml"
.IG "8 Tbsp" "parmesan cheese" "100 g"
(grated)
.PH
.SK 1
Put large bowl in oven to warm at lowest possible setting.
.SK 2
Soak chopped onion in cold water for 15 minutes to reduce pungency.
.SK 3
Chop Pancetta or bacon into
.AB "\(14-inch\(mu1-inch" "5mm\(mu2cm"
strips.
.SK 4
Beat eggs and cream together with a fork.  Add 
.AB "4 Tbsp" "50 g"
parmesan cheese to the mixture.
.SK 5
Wash pasta.  Put on water to cook pasta.  Add pasta when boiling.  In
the meantime...
.SK 6 
Dry onions and saut\z\(aae with pancetta or bacon in olive oil until onions
are barely translucent.
.SK 7
Add wine and reduce heat when initial boiling ceases.  Meat should not
be crisp.
.SK 8
When pasta is cooked, drain, but
.I
do not wash.
.S
.SK 9
Quickly remove bowl from oven, put pasta in it and toss with egg, cream
and cheese mixture so that heat from pasta cooks eggs.
.SK 10
Add meat, onions and wine without draining fat and toss until
thoroughly mixed.
.SK 11
Sprinkle remaining cheese to taste, toss and serve immediately.
.NX
Pasta should be cooked
.I
al dente
.S
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.
.PP
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.
.SH RATING
.I Difficulty:
moderate to hard (timing is critical).
.I Time:
30 minutes.
.I Precision:
measure the ingredients.
.WR
Byron Howes
North Carolina Education Computing Service, Research Triangle Park, NC
bch@ecsvax  or  {akgua,decvax}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch