When people think of the Italian kind of pasta here in Suriname, their thoughts usually go straight to Alfredo sauce pasta. And when they think of spaghetti, it's the kind with tomato sauce and meatballs. I guess that's partly because those are the ones that are popularized here by restaurants. And in the case of spaghetti films like Lady and the Tramp almost stereotyped the dish.
And so people trying to make pasta usually end up picking between those same recipes over and over again.
But not me. I like to try new things. Especially when I make dishes from other countries, it should be as authentic as possible, or as much as available ingredients allow it. So I was about to make spaghetti Bolognese or 'aglio e olio' when a colleague of mine told me about spaghetti Carbonara and how that was made. He told me it was made with pancetta which is basically thick bacon and I was sold. Throwing the egg in at the end also intrigued me, but I'm getting ahead of the post.
I didn't have and couldn't get pancetta, but luckily I had bacon ready to go. So I cut those pieces up and starting heating the pan. First I threw in some olive oil and butter along with a generous amount of garlic. According to the garlic religion in my household any less would've been blasphemy. After that I threw in the pieces of bacon. This creates an oily sauce of olive oil, butter and the rendered bacon fat infused with garlic.
I also threw in a bit of chopped chilies and tomatoes for good measure. As you can see it looks great. And the kitchen smelled heavenly.
Meanwhile co-chef @tanjakolader cooked the pasta perfectly 'al dente', which means on the verge of being all the way cooked basically.
The next step is to mixed that al dente pasta with the heavenly oily sauce in the pan. While mixing this make sure to keep the pasta noodles from frying or drying up. To achieve this you can just add small amounts of the water the pasta was cooked in. At this point I added some salt for flavor as well.
And finally it was time for that intriguing step. At first you break an egg or two or three in a bowl and mix it with parmesan cheese. Most recipes say to turn off the heat off the pan and combine the egg mixture and pasta in the pan. But because I wanted to eat another portion again the next day, I put the steaming hot portion on the plates first and mixed everything on those.
This resulted in the picture at the top. And after adding some more parmesan cheese and a bit of black pepper, the dish was complete.
My first impression of tasting this dish for the first time was one to remember. I literally sighed out of joy and said "screw Alfredo, this right here is the real deal". Tanja also liked it, although she was a bit overwhelmed by the strong presence of butter and bacon. I'm definitely going to make Carbonara more often now.
What are some new dishes you have recently tried?
