Simple Spaghetti Carbonara
By: Kita
Published: Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 6:54pm

Ingredients




Extra vir­gin olive oil (3 tablespoons)
8 oz diced bacon, pancetta, or guan­ciale (if you can find it)
1 pound spaghetti
2 cups freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano, depend­ing on your taste
4 large eggs, separated
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 A brunoise of medium red onion
Freshly ground pepper
Kosher salt to taste

Preparation

1 Bring 5–6 quarts of water to boil in a large pot. Sea­son gen­er­ously with sev­eral pinches of kosher salt (this should be done when­ever you cook pasta, and can­not be empha­sized enough). 2 In a large (12 in) saute pan, add the olive oil over medium/low heat, tilt­ing the pan to make cer­tain that the oil cov­ers the entire sur­face. Add the bacon, cook­ing until it has ren­dered its fat, and become crisp. 3 Add onions and gar­lic to pan, toss­ing to com­bine with bacon. Cook for 5 min­utes, or until translu­cent. Remove pan from heat, set aside, do NOT drain the fat. 4 Cook the spaghetti in the water (it should be at a rolling boil) until al dente, about 5–6 min­utes. Reserve 1/3 cup of the pasta water and set aside. Drain the pasta. 5 Add the reserved pasta water to the pan with the bacon, onions, and gar­lic, toss­ing in the pasta. Return the pan to medium heat, shak­ing it for 1–2 min­utes. Remove from the heat, adding in 1 cup of the parmigiano-reggiano, the egg whites, and ground black pep­per, toss­ing all ingre­di­ents to make cer­tain they are mixed completely. 6 Divide the pasta into four por­tions, top­ping each por­tion with one of the reserved egg yolks. (Note: do this gen­tly, so as to not pre­ma­turely break the yolk before the plate reaches the diner). Sea­son each yolk with more cracked black pep­per, and use the remain­ing parmigiano-reggiano to gar­nish the top of each serv­ing. Serve imme­di­ately (Note: if you don’t serve imme­di­ately, the pasta will have lost enough heat that it won’t cook the yolk when it is stirred in).

About


From the kitchen of a friend: This is a pretty sim­ple dish, but much like an omelet, there’s a sur­pris­ing degree of finesse required to exe­cute it prop­erly. There is a fine line you must walk when heat­ing the pasta in the pan: if the heat is too low, the egg whites & pasta water will make the dish runny, as will the egg yolk later; if the heat is too hot, the egg whites will scram­ble. The goal is for the pasta to have a creamy, unc­tu­ous fin­ish, where the cheese, egg whites, pasta water, and finally yolks are in harmony.