Mamma Mia

It always happens. I am doing something that I should be doing, but then my thought turns to food and I get distracted. Having done my political blog post for the week, I feel completely justified in working on this food post.

The trick to live on a budget but still eat like royalty is to buy ingredients that are versatile. Say peaches for example. They are gorgeous fresh, made into a compote, or grilled be it on a grill, stove, or oven. There are likewise endless permutations for how you can eat them. Or carrots. Sauté them and glaze them. Have them as a mash or even a luxurious smooth purée. The same can be said about a whole slew of other ingredients. One ingredient, in and of itself exciting. But find new ways of working with it. Rather than exclusively posting recipes, I will be including tips and techniques that I believe are more useful that recipes. Then with these tips and techniques, you can adapt it for other dishes. The dish for today? Carbonara.

Ingredients:

- Pasta (€0.13 per portion or €1 for a pack of 8 servings)

- Eggs (€.50 for 3 eggs or €5.35 for 30)

- Bacon lardons (€0.20 per portion or €1.60 for a pack of 8 servings)

- Parmigiano Reggiano (€0.20 per portion or €6 for a good sized wedge)

There are 3 steps. Step 1 and 2 I do simultaneously.

Step 1: The Pasta

You can use any kind of pasta you like. Spaghetti or tagliatelle is what I usually use. Back in America I would make pasta dough and tagliatelle, pappardelle etc. by hand (which cooks a lot quicker) but dried pastas work great!

1. Get a pot of water onto the boil

2. As it comes up to a rolling boil, salt the water with a good pinch or two and drizzle some oil (olive oil if possible) into the water. This does 2 things. First, it seasons the water and therefore the pasta absorbs the flavour of the salt and the olive oil

3. Drop the pasta into the water. For me, it usually takes about 6 to 8 minutes for dry pasta to cook to just about an al dente.

Tip: Al dente means literally means “to the tooth” and so your pasta is nice and cooked but still has a little bite to it. So during the whole cook process, take a strand out around 6 minutes to see if the texture is to your liking. Generally, the pasta is just about done when it hangs relaxed when you pull it out with a fork.

4. Once cooked, do not pour the water away. Take the pot off the heat.

Step 2: The Garnish

I like a little garnish with my pasta. For carbonara, I enjoy it with a little cured meat. Traditionally, pancetta (pork belly) or guanciale (pork cheek) is used. Bacon lardons or streaky bacon cut in strips work just as well. Again, I would do step 2 concurrently with step 1.

1. Heat a pan till it is smoking hot

2. Once you see the pan begin to smoke, toss in your cured meat, season with pepper only, and cook till brown and crisp

Viola. That is it. Turn the heat off.

Tip: Make sure your pan is smoking. If it isn’t, you’ll end up just boiling your cured meat instead of browning it. The meat should also release a good amount of oil. That is good!

Step 3: Combine

There is no cream in a carbonara. Just egg. I prefer to just use the yolks of the egg; it makes it creamier.

1. Maybe the easiest way to separate the yolk from the egg is to gently crack the egg into your hand. Use the gaps between your fingers to let the whites slide away, leaving a full unbroken yolk in your hand. You will probably want 2 - 3 yolks.

Tip: Use the whites for meringues or a chocolate mousse. Everybody loves a good dessert.

2. Whisk the eggs up with a fork and add a good dose of parmigiano reggiano, or a like cheese, and pepper.

Now remember how you have that pasta in the water and the pan of lardons with its oil?

3. Take the pasta and put it in the pan with the lardons and oil. Add some of the starchy water and mix the pasta around to combine it with the oil and lardons. What you are doing here is creating an emulsion that is the beginning of a creamy sauce. Feel free to add more butter and water to create more of an emulsion if either element is lacking.

Tip: This emulsion really is the making of any good pasta dish and sauce. You will, or should, create an emulsion with any pasta.

4. Once that is done, pour your egg and cheese mix into the pan and stir it well with the pasta. Remember, your stove should be off at this point with your pan not in contact with any heat. Why? You do not want your eggs to cook and scramble from the heat of the pan. The residual heat from the pasta will cook the yolk, emulsify it further with the pasta water and oil, and create a gorgeous, creamy sauce.

And there you go. Carbonara. Serve it and finish it off with more pepper and cheese because why not. There should be sufficient salt from the pasta (when you seasoned the water) and the lardons. Sometimes I go one step further and poach an egg to have with the dish. Poached eggs are incredible, go with so many other dishes, and do not take much time at all.

1. Put a small pot of water onto the boil. You want the pot pretty full of water. Also, crack an egg into a teacup or something small like that.

2. Once it has gotten to a rolling boil, add a splash of vinegar or lemon juice. Using a fork or a whisk, stir the water and work it up to a quick spin.

3. Once it is spinning quick, almost forming a whirlpool, gently but quickly drop your egg in. From this point, the egg takes about a minute and a half to cook. You know it is done when it starts to float toward the surface.

4. What I usually do now is have a bowl of ice/cold-ish water next to me. I’ll remove the poached egg from the hot water and drop it into the ice water for 10-30 seconds. This stops the egg from cooking further. I then take it out and place it on a dish to dry.

Tip: The vinegar/lemon juice encourages the egg white to seize up when in the water so you get a nice compact poached egg. Likewise, having a pot full of water and creating a mini whirlpool in the pot means when you drop the egg in, both the depth of the water and the spin causes the whites to wrap around the egg nicely, giving you a pretty looking packed egg.