Weekly Dish

My husband has been so supportive since I’ve been in school. He’s indulged my study-break cooking frenzies, patiently cleaning up my messes and dutifully tasting every test recipe; he’s done an awful lot of laundry and cleaning of the bathroom; and he  rarely every complains. The job I’ve been reluctant to give up, of course, is the making of our dinners. David is completely competent and capable in the kitchen, so it isn’t that I don’t trust him to do it (though he gladly would), it’s just that for me, somehow, making dinner every night is the one chore that keeps me sane, that helps me to feel like a normal person whose life is not completely chaotic. It brings order to an otherwise out-of-control schedule.

But some nights I just don’t have it in me. And now that David is a full-time student too, our schedule has become even more unorthodox. Dinner, for example, on Wednesday nights is served promptly at 10 p.m., when David gets home from class. For the nights when I have so much to do before the morning that I can’t think how to fit in cooking dinner too, rather than turn to take-out (which we try hard not to do), I turn over the kitchen to David.

He has a couple of standard classic recipes that are his specialties, and I’m hoping to introduce you to most of them, one at a time. You’ve already become acquainted with his famous roast chicken. Number 2 on the list of his favorite things to make is carbonara. He first learned to make it in Italy (which he will tell you about in a moment), and he’s been fixing this hearty comfort food for me almost as long as I’ve known him.

Most people who make carbonara feel pretty strongly about their way of doing it, and David is no exception. But if you’re stuck in the kitchen at 5:30 without any clue about what to make for dinner, and you happen to have eggs, bacon, noodles, and some Parmesan cheese, this meal comes together in less than half an hour. Low-calorie, it is not, but what it lacks in nutritional value, it makes up for in taste. Certainly, we would not eat a meal like this every night (and usually when we plan on carbonara, I try to limit the fat content of the rest of our meals), but for nights when we’re busy and we need sustenance, this hits the spot.

Here are David’s unedited instructions. I quote word-for-word from the cook:
1. Boil water. Insert 1 pound noodles. (Note from Jennifer: Usually, we use the traditional fettucine, but this night we only had rigatoni, and we actually prefer it. The ridges hold the eggy sauce quite nicely.)

2. Get out: 3 eggs, bacon, Parmesan cheese.

3. In a bowl, whisk 3 eggs with 1/4 cup cream (or whole milk) and salt and pepper. Not tons of salt–the bacon and cheese are also salty. But pepper: use as much pepper as your wife will let you get away with.

4. Cook some bacon. If you like a lot of bacon, cook a lot. If you’re trying to be healthier, or you don’t like a lot of bacon, not so much. Completely up to you. (Note from Jennifer: chances are, if you’re trying to be healthy, you aren’t making carbonara. But who knows?)

5. Grate fresh Parmesan. A lot. You can never have enough. Not-fresh Parmesan is a Republican plot to make us all lazy and compliant. Have you seen Kraft’s political platform?

6. Think about Italy while you grate the cheese and wait for the noodles and bacon to cook. If you like, I will tell you the story of how I learned to make this. I once went to Italy with a group of artists. We had carbonara at this fabulous restaurant, and as we were lamenting the fact that you can’t get carbonara like that anywhere in Mississippi (because we were all from Mississippi), a member of our party — Father Canonici, a lovely old priest with deep Italian roots — shared this recipe with us. You know, the one I’m giving to you now in such specific detail. What can I say, I didn’t write it down, and my memory is fuzzy. What I do know is that you should never, ever put peas in carbonara.

7. Weird how this is so good with no garlic. (Note from Jennifer: I don’t know what this has to do with anything, but I was instructed to take it down. Remember: not my words!)
8. Make sure the bacon is cooked to a nice crispy texture. I don’t really like crispy bacon (a common source of contention at our house), but it works with the carbonara to keep things from getting all clumpy.

9. Keep a close eye on the noodles; you don’t want them overdone.

10. Drain the noodles.

11. Dump the noodles back into the pot.

12. Pour the egg-cream mixture on top of the still-hot noodles. Now, this is the important part. You want to mix it up so that the heat of the noodles will start to firm up the eggs a bit before returning the pot to the burner. You do this for two reasons: 1. You want the noodles to get nicely coated before the eggs get too done. 2. It will be easier to clean the pot when you’re done because there won’t be as much egg stuck to the bottom of the pan. This was learned the hard way.

13. Once the eggs have begun to stick to the noodles, return the pot to a low heat. Stir gently and constantly (keep in mind: the more you stir, the less scrubbing you’ll have to do after dinner).

14. Now is the time to sneak in more pepper when your wife isn’t looking.

15. Crumble the bacon. We do it with kitchen scissors because the bacon is still very hot.

16. After cooking and stirring for 5 minutes or so, add the cheese. You don’t want to add the cheese too early, or it will get lost.

17. Keep stirring. Check to make sure you aren’t getting cheese clumps all over your spoon.

18. Finally, now everything will start to come together and you can add the bacon at last.

19. Adding the bacon is sort of like when you’re making muffins and you don’t want to overmix your wet and dry ingredients. Fold gently. If you mix too much, it will all end up on the bottom.

20. Serve immediately.

21. When you’ve served up what you plan to eat tonight, immediately put the leftovers in a different container so you can start soaking the pot. Believe me, you’ll be glad later.

22. Talk about Italy while you eat.

There you have it, David’s words on carbonara. Enjoy!

Posted: Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 at 9:47 am Filed under: Main Dish, Pasta, Comfort Food, Eggs, Quick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.