La Belle Cuisine cannot urge you strongly enough to do yourself a favor and purchase this excellent cookbook!  It is, 'filled with culinary wisdom and crystal
clear recipes,' (Jeff Steingarten, Vogue), 'the one Italian cookbook you would
take to a desert island,' (Sidney Moore, Washington Post), and 'quite simply,
the most logical and helpful book on Italian cooking.' (William Rice, Chicago Tribune) We could not agree more!

“An Italian food historian claims that during the last days of World War II, American soldiers in Rome who had made friends with local families would
bring them eggs and bacon and ask them to turn them into a pasta sauce.
The historian notwithstanding, how those classic American ingredients,
bacon and eggs, came to be transformed into carbonara has not really
been established, but there is no doubting the earthy flavor of the
sauce: It is unmistakably Roman.
Most versions of carbonara use bacon smoked in the American style, but in
Rome one can sometimes have the sauce without any bacon at all, but with
salted pork jowl in its place. It is so much sweeter than bacon, whose smoky
accents tend to weary the palate. Pork jowl is hard to get outside Italy [it is
very easy to come by in the American South!] but in its place one can use
pancetta, which supplies comparably rounded and mellow flavor. You can
make the sauce either way, with bacon or pancetta, and you could try both
methods to see which satisfies you  more.”

For 6 servings

1/2 pound pancetta, cut as a single
1/2-inch-thick slice, OR
its equivalent in good slab bacon
4 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 large eggs *
1/4 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-
Reggiano cheese
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 1/4 pounds pasta

* Egg Safety Information

Recommended pasta: It is difficult to imagine serving carbonara
on anything but spaghetti.

1. Cut the pancetta or slab bacon into strips not quite 1/4 inch wide.
2. Lightly mash the garlic with a knife handle, enough to split it and
loosen the skin, which you will discard. Put the garlic and olive oil
into a small sauté pan and turn on the heat to medium high. Sauté
until the garlic becomes colored a deep gold, and remove and
discard it.
3. Put the strips of pancetta or bacon into the pan, and cook until
they just begin to crisp at the edges. Add the wine, let it bubble
away for 1 to 2 minutes, then turn off the heat.
4. Break the 2 eggs into the serving bowl in which you’ll be subse-
quently tossing the pasta. Beat them lightly with a fork, then
add the two grated cheeses, a liberal grinding of pepper, and
the chopped parsley. Mix thoroughly.
5. Add cooked drained spaghetti to the bowl, and toss rapidly,
coating the strands well.
6. Briefly reheat the pancetta or bacon over high heat, turn out
the entire contents of the pan into the bowl, toss thoroughly
again, and serve at once.

Featured Archive Recipes:
Fresh Fettuccine Alfredo
Marcella on Matching Pasta to Sauce
Marcella's Tomato Sauce 101
Marcella's White Clam Sauce

Index - Pasta Recipe Archives
Daily Recipe Index
Recipe Archives Index
Recipe Search