Easy Pasta Carbonara

My regular readers know by now that my favorite dishes are often the ones that have the fewest ingredients.  However, those ingredients should be the best that you can find.  Tonight’s dish for Easy Pasta Carbonara follows my rule for good food (ingredients), good cooking (fairly simple) that result in good eats!

The origin of this Italian classic is not known.  Carbonara is the Italian word for charcoal burner.  Some say that this dish was made to feed Italian Charcoal workers.  Others say the reference to charcoal comes from the flakes of fresh cracked black pepper.  All I know is that it combines some of our favorite ingredients.  Pork, cheese and eggs.

While the overall method for making the dish doesn’t vary a lot between recipes, the ingredient list can.  Traditionally it was made with Guanciale ( pork cheek).  Some people like to use Pancetta (Italian pork belly).  Since I had neither of these ingredients in my refrigerator I used a high quality, smoked thick cut bacon.  Make sure whatever piece of the pig you use, it contains plenty of fat.  You will need that rendered fat to create a luscious, creamy sauce.  Click here for an article that explains the differences.

When it comes to cheese, it’s traditionally made with a combination of Pecorino Romano (an Italian dried sheeps cheese) and Parmigiano-Reggiano (the cadillac of Italian aged raw cow’s milk).  I used only Parmigiano-Reggiano because that’s what I had on hand.  I added heavy cream.  Some traditional recipes don’t use cream at all.

Lastly it’s really up to you to select the type of pasta you would like.  Traditionally it’s made with spaghetti.  But I chose Orecchiette (little ears) knowing that the indentation of the shape would hold the silky egg and cheese sauce.  What I’ve discovered about orecchiette is that they require quite a long boil.

Buon appetito!