Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Bacon and eggs...

carnonara



I've always wondered if there was a moment when classic combinations of food where discovered, some eureka style moment when back in the mist of history someone decided they'd wack some onion on that liver, or a bored cave-wife threw some mushrooms in with the chicken cooking on the fire whilst her mammoth hunting husband was pondering his cave paintings. Probably not. There seems to be too much synchronicity, the same combinations popping up all over the world in a slightly different context.

Here we have one of my favourite quick fix pasta dishes, penne carbonara, a real carb fix on a cold day; (the temperature here in London is plummeting and it looks like we are due some snow on Friday and Saturday) the mixture of the salty pancetta with the pecorino and egg yolks is the ultimate in comfort food satisfaction especially with a nice fat round Barolo wine. Course, it doesn't beat a fry up on a Saturday morning, but hey, it's as close as they get in Italy.
PS Please note that no cream came any where near this carbonara. The inclusion of such is the devils own pasta sauce.

6 comments:

Greg said...

Darn good looking pasta! Do the eggs yolks make it that cool yellow color?

Sam said...

my take on carbonara is that it should contain
eggs
cream
butter
cheese
and pancetta with all its fat
all of these things but in the right quantities so that the result should be almost dry once it has covered all of the spaghetti.

yours looks scrumptious though so I wouldn't say no. Fred would be licking the screen so I am not going to show him.

Monkey Gland said...

Andrew: Kidney beans are the preserve of donations to little old ladies at harvest festival time...they serve no other purpose!

Greg: Yup, some big fat organic egg yolks make so yellow.

Sam: You and Andrew are the devils disciples! I can't deal with cream in this dish, it makes it waaay to rich for me and I reckon it crowds out the other flavours...I tried getting a quorum of Italians to agree...as ever I failed.

Sam said...

It shouldnt be too much cream. I hate my carbonara swimming in cream. the end result should look like it doesn't contain cream, even though the devil has put it there.
Hey. My birthdate is 6/6/66, what else can I do?

cookiecrumb said...

Ew, Sam! All those sixes! (Oh. Duh. Sixy Beast!!)
Monkey Gland: Do you ever allow onions in pasta carbonara? I know it's not kosher, but I like 'em.

Monkey Gland said...

never tried it cookie...hmm interesting