Who doesn't like a nice hot pasta dish at the end of a stressful day or week? Ultimate comfort food. All the carbs. All the cheese. All the bacon. All the carbs. Omg, carbs.
So when I finished my university exams for the semester, naturally I hit up my old faithful comfort food, Carbonara.
As with anything worth cooking, first you start with the Bacon.
Personally, I only use Havoc Free Range bacon. They're a lovely medium sized business run down here in Dunedin. They take fantastic care of their pigs and their bacon is the best I have ever tried. Ever. Chop it up into wee bits and chuck it in a nice hot frying pan. Leave the fat on, because that renders down in lieu of using any oil. Let it start getting browned and slightly crispy. Now, if you were doing a traditional Carbonara, you would only add bacon and some black pepper to the dish. But I am not doing this completely traditionally. In fact, I have developed a taste for some decidedly non traditional ingredients.
So in goes the asparagus. Chopped into inch long pieces, don't stress about the strangely strong taste taking over the dish. Rather, the asparagus takes on the smokiness of the bacon, and if you let it crisp golden on the outside, it takes on a beautifully caramelised sweet flavor that complements the whole dish perfectly.
At some stage during this process, you probably ought to pop on your pasta to boil. The whole thing takes a lot quicker than you would think and by the time the spaghetti is ready everything else is done, too.
Throw in some mushrooms, and while you're at it, throw in a few more. Don't bother chopping them up ally finely, just rip them up. This avoids any bruising and they taste far better nearing the end. Top all this with copious amounts of black pepper. By now the smell should be making your mouth create an unseemly amount of drool creeping down your chin. So good.
Now for what many people think of as the scary part. But it's super easy and it works every time, I promise you. No more buying the weak, slimy carbonara from a can - yuk! Do it yourself like this. Grab one nice big egg and separate the yolk from the white. You only need the yolk for this. Save the white to make a nice meringue for dessert. Or an egg white omelette for a power breakfast, if you're that kind of person. Pop the yolk into a small bowl or cup.
When your pasta has cooked, scoop out a decent half to 3/4 cup of the starchy cooking water before you go and drain it all down the kitchen sink. Add it to the egg yolk and give it a nice whisk with a fork til it's well combined. This has multiple purposes. The added water makes enough liquid for a decent amount of sauce. The starchiness of the water after having cooked the pasta in it makes the sauce cling to the ingredients of the dish so you don't end up with bland ingredients at the top of the bowl and a puddle of sauce down the bottom. And the heat of the water tempers the egg yolk so that when you add it to the hot ingredients, it actually makes a sauce instead of scrambling.
So chuck in your spaghetti, pour in the tempered egg yolk and throw in a good large handful of grated Parmesan cheese. Now is not a time to skimp. You're already eating enough calories for twelve people with this dish, so you may as well make it count. Get your tongs and just keep lifting and combining the spaghetti until it's one glorious, delicious mess. Then serve it all up and enjoy.
