Linguine Carbonara

I was introduced to Rick Stein's cooking by a friend and I happened to chance upon his clip on making Carbonara the Italian way. It looked so easy that I was inspired to try making it. The selling point was that no cream was used at all. Maybe I am getting older but now I find myself preferring pasta which is simple and light. No more heavy sauces, I just want something made with olive oil and herbs or white wine.

Apparently the Italian carbonara typically consists of guanciale (pancetta or bacon are fine too), pecorino cheese (made of ewe's milk) and eggs. Cream is used outside of Italy and is the version most of us are familiar with.

Real Italian carbonara doesn't use parmesan and cream.

Ingredients

• 400g/14oz dried spaghetti

• 175g/6¼oz piece smoked pancetta, rind removed

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• handful flatleaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

• 3 large free-range eggs, beaten

• 50g/1¾oz pecorino sardo maturo (mature Sardinian pecorino), finely grated

• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation method

1. Bring 4.5 litres/8 pints water to the boil in a large saucepan with eight teaspoons salt. Add the spaghetti and cook for nine minutes, or until al dente.

2. Meanwhile, cut the pancetta into lardons (short little strips), about 6mm/1¼in wide.

3. Heat a large, deep frying pan over a medium-high heat, add the oil and the pancetta and fry until lightly golden. Add the garlic and parsley and cook for a few seconds, then remove from the heat and set aside.

4. Drain the spaghetti well, tip into the frying pan with the pancetta, garlic and parsley, add the beaten eggs and half the grated pecorino cheese and toss together well.

5. Season to taste with a little salt and black pepper. The heat from the spaghetti will be sufficient to partly cook the egg, but still leave it moist and creamy. Take to the table and serve in warmed pasta bowls, sprinkled with the rest of the cheese.

It is hard to find pecorino cheese and it took me going to 4-5 supermarkets before I found it. Even then only pecorino romano is available. It works equally well, and is endorsed by my Italian friends who helped me on my quest on finding the cheese.

I found it at 360 marketplace and Jasons marketplace. Pancetta was out of stock so I used the normal streaky bacon.

The portion is huge and can feed 4-6 people, so invite more people for the meal. I used about 100gm of the cheese as I felt it was not flavorful enough but you could probably season it to your liking.

Mangia!

Recipe from Rick Stein - BBC Food Recipes.