zorro > wrote:
>with a whole lot of coarsely ground black pepper. And one of the tour
>guides explaining that the black pepper was the reason it was "CARBONara" -
>it looked like what the coal-miners dug up.
>
>Unless it's a dish the coal-miners ate.
>
>In that case, nevermind.

The etymology is buried in history (unless someone digs
up authoritative scholarship on it).

It could "look like" it has coal in it, it could refer to
pasta made in the style of the coal miner, or the charcoal
maker (who burns wood anaerobically (under the ground)
to make charcoal fuel, which burns aerobically at a higher
temperature than wood would), or one of their wives ("alla
Carbonara," a term similar to "a la muniere", French for
"in the manner of the miller's wife"). It may predate
World War 2, or it may have been invented and/or named
only during or after World War 2 (when necessity would
have mothered invention).

It may originally have contained olive oil, cream, butter,
or water; it may have been made with bacon, pancetta,
ham, or guanciale; and it may have been served with the
egg yolks mixed in the sauce or having been reserved to
be placed whole on top of the dish.

All I know for sure is, I nailed it today, and it was
great.

Here's the rundown:


PASTA CARBONARA (with thanks to Giada de Laurentiis)
(serves 4)

6 eggs
1/2 cup cream
4 oz finely grated hard cheese
16 oz dry pasta (penne or large noodles like
fettucine or full-sized spaghetti)
16 oz pancetta or thick bacon, chopped into chunks
4 tbs fresh italian parsley leaves, washed and chopped
salt
pepper

Fry meat in large pan to desired doneness. Season with
pepper.

Cook pasta.

Beat eggs and cream; mix in cheese and parsley; add
pepper.

Drain pasta but don't rinse (save a few tbs of the pasta
water). Put pasta in pan with meat and mix over low
heat to coat pasta with hot oil.

Add sauce. Mix constantly and allow heat to thicken
sauce. (A tablespoon or two of the pasta water may help
because of the starch in it).

Pour into serving bowl.

Garnish with parsley and parmesan.


Troubleshooting:

If the eggs scramble, the heat was too high.
If the dish is bitter, perhaps you used too much pepper or parsley.
If the sauce won't thicken, you used too much cream or pasta water
or the heat was too low.


Options:

1. Add a chopped onion to the meat after a couple of
minutes of frying. When the onion is translucent, add
1/4 cup white wine and reduce the wine by half.

2. Add mushrooms, or replace bacon with browned mushrooms
and oil (this would make it vegetarian, too).

3. If you make this for one person, you have to divide
everything by 4, so beat two eggs and then pour out 1/4
of that to leave 1.5 eggs before adding anything else.

4. Use other herbs and seasonings.

5. Use a few tbs of oil instead of cream; or use extra
bacon fat. (Instead of putting it in the sauce first,
fry the bacon in the oil and leave it in the pan). (N.B.
there's nothing in cream that isn't in cheese and pasta
water, so there's no reason to think cream doesn't belong.)

6. Use extra pasta water instead of oil or cream (a
quarter cup instead of a few tbs when adding the pasta
to the bacon; this is Mario Battali's version, so you
can expect it to come out watery).

7. Mixed cheeses (Parmesan and pecorino, for example).

8. Leave out the eggs, cream, and bacon, and add
butter (oh wait...that's Pasta Alfredo...)

--Blair
"Alfredo, adj. in the manner of the
brother who got whacked for going
against the family."