You probably know what “carbonara” is, it’s a creamy sauce with parmesan and eggs. You combine it with pasta and you can add chicken or shrimp. Here is an incredibly simple chicken version.
It’s a good, hearty winter meal. The last time I served this we were eight and a friend brought along her latest new boyfriend. Her boyfriends are often my test kitchen. This one said, “Wow, this is better than Olive Garden! You made this yourself?” After I peeled my arched eyebrow from underneath the hair on my scalp I said, “Yes, and it’s surprisingly easy. Olive Garden. You know, I’ve never been. I’m told that it’s expensive but you get so much food it’s not a bad value.” The Better Half chimed in, “Well, the way you eat you might enjoy it then!” “You know, you’re right, and for the next week I think we’ll have a week of vegan trail mix dinners.” [I did not do this to him.]
I’ve toned this down so it feeds two big guys with a little treat for The Faithful Hound. He seems to enjoy a good carbonara.
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Tongs
1 12-oz. box of spaghetti. You can use fettuccine or tagliatelle but I prefer spaghetti.
1 large boneless, skinless plump chicken breast. Slice this in half and cut it into 1/2-inch strips about an inch of two in length. Put that in a bowl. Take the chicken out right before you’re ready to prepare, don’t leave the chicken hanging about.
6 slices of supermarket bacon. You want it to be thin, not the rich fatty kind. If you want to go molto Italiano use pancetta, but slightly less, because it is rich and fatty. Cut this into small pieces, 1/2-inch by 1/2-inch.
3 cloves of garlic, at least, minced
1 1/2 cups of finely self-grated parmesan cheese. A little more if you want. This is typically about 3 oz.
4 large eggs
Some diced parsley as a garnish
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Salt the chicken strips and mix them around. Put a big pot of water on to boil, salt, and add the pasta. You want it to be good and cooked, not al dente, but not gummy and paste-y. About 10 minutes.
In a trusty large skillet, add the bacon and the garlic, and fry for two or three minutes.
Dump the chicken into the skillet, turn the heat up to medium high, and cook for another six or seven or so minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Take the skillet off the heat.
In a bowl, beat the four eggs and the parmesan to blend.
By now the pasta should be done. Drain into a colander but hang onto a little of the cooking water. Dump the pasta from the colander into the skillet. Add the egg/parmensan mixture. Now with the tongs, stir all of this around so that the bacon and garlic and chicken combine with the pasta and the sauce starts coating everything. If the sauce seems a little thick to you, add a little pasta water at a time and keep mixing and stirring. You actually need not a little upper body strength to do this. Recipes like this is why many Italian grandmothers could wrestle alligators and get the best of them.
But WAIT a minute, Cousin Matthew, I’m dumping raw eggs…? Yes, because the skillet and its contents, and the pasta, will throw off enough heat to cook them. As it is your eggs might scramble a little during this process and that’s fine, it’s just not what you’re going for. You really should make sure the chicken is cooked.
With a keen eye and a steady hand transfer the chicken carbonara to plates. Garnish with the parsley. We have some comically enormous ones so this isn’t much of an issue for us, but don’t overfill the plates: this is another sloppy pasta-based Cousin Matthew specialty. Leave some in the skillet (and put the skillet in the oven to keep warm) and go back for seconds.
Note: I would not attempt to keep this for leftovers. Even if the chicken and the bacon and the egg sauce behaved, it would be kind of a congealed mess.
Carbonara, yum! I never made it myself but I think I’ll give it a try.
I wrote that intro line a little hastily. A creamy sauce made with eggs and Parmesan is called something else in Italian, I can’t remember what. What makes this a carbonara is the addition of the pork. I regret the error.
No regrets, Cousin M – I am still chortling over your raised eyebrow and threats to the Better Half. This looks yummy and, alas, non-Keitel friendly. I made Butcher’s clam sauce last evening – delicious – with spousal approval. Someone took one bite and scurried off to the refrigerator in search of meat and potatoes. Perhaps I too will offer a week of vegan trail mix dinners.
That clam sauce looked amazing. I’m going to have to try that myself.
This reminds me that some time ago I was watching a cooking show, or a cooking segment, and some guy I never heard of made this incredible quick and simple clam chowder. I made it and it was excellent. I’ll have to try and track it down and maybe do a post on that. Of course I could just post a video link rather than transcribing. Maybe I’ll do both.
This also reminds me that I was once at a family gathering and the topic of dinner came up. Someone proposed the Olive Garden. I’d never been so I was all in. Someone else said, “I can’t eat their food. It’s too spicy.” This was an in-law. Knowing how bland our diets were growing up I wonder what theirs was like. Gruel and suet probably. I have still not been to an Olive Garden. We have at least one that I know of. Maybe when indoor dining is allowed again I’ll try to go and drag the Better Half. I presume there will be a window of opportunity where restaurants like the Olive Garden will be open but the tourists will not have returned yet so we could get seated.
I always think it’d be fun to try making a carbonara (or whatever you would call the vegetarian equivalent that doesn’t have pork). But my husband has a weird allergy to raw egg and we’re never quite sure where the line is and whether carbonara is cooked enough to be safe for him. Maybe someday I’ll try out a carbonara just for myself, because I feel like it’d be an interesting challenge to get that perfectly creamy sauce and not scrambled eggs.
Spaghetti in a sauce that only has eggs and parmesan made like this is very common in Italy and usually one of the cheapest things on the menu. Along with the parmesan there’s usually a second grated cheese, I’m guessing pecorino Romano, and I think they throw in a little cream. You should look around online to see what else you might add to this. In Italy itself walnuts show up a lot more than they do in the US and I bet that would be good. Chunk tomatoes or diced green pepper would work, I should think. I’ll have to look myself because I have enough vegetarian friends that half the time there’s at least one so in deference to them the whole meal is vegetarian, which is no hardship and no one has ever noticed. Italian food tends to be vegetarian-friendly because Italy was a very poor country up until the postwar era and meat was somewhat of a luxury. They ate a ton of fish though because they have not only a very extensive coastline but lots and lots of lakes and rivers.
Oh, totally. Italian food is a huge part of my diet. (Making pizza tonight actually.) I always laugh when I encounter someone who apparently lives in a hole and is like “but what do vegetarians even eat???” This happens far less these days than it did when I was a teenager, but still does occasionally happen. I usually reply “uh, have you ever heard of Italian food?” Of course, the people who ask this also don’t seem to know you can have spaghetti without meatballs or pizza without pepperoni.
There was a very strange story a while ago involving a vegetarian Italian restaurant here. An employee did something or something was done to them, but there was an odd twist that got tongues wagging but I can’t remember what it was. I was at a party and someone brought this up and asked, “What in the world would they serve at a vegetarian Italian restaurant?” “Vegetarian, not vegan.” When I got home I went online to look at the menu. They didn’t even mention that they were vegetarian, they just were, and the menu was quite extensive, with lots of old favorites. Ten or more different types of pizza, even more pasta dishes, bruschetta, cheese platters, a wine list, salads, desserts, pretty much everything except old standbys like chicken parmigiana, stuff in a meat-based ragù/sauce, and osso buco. I could have happily eaten at that restaurant three nights a week for a year and wouldn’t have tired of it. And I am a confirmed carnivore, believe me.
I always love to bring up that the original authentic parmigiana dish is eggplant – chicken came as a variation later on. I used to try to claim the same about cheese lasagna, but that’s apparently up for debate – several different regions claim to be the inventors of lasagna, with different variations.
Vegan Italian would definitely be a whole different story. I think you’d pretty much have to use dairy substitutes if you wanted to serve anything other than pasta marinara and aglio e olio…