[Recipe] Carbonara Pasta

People often ask questions like... "Hey, how you cook this ah???" when they come over hubby's dinner 'parties'. And he would always say... "Er... just cook lo. Don't have recipe la". He would then explain that cooking comes from passion and interests, and if you need to read from a recipe to cook, then you might as well have dinner outside and pay for it. BUT... because he has promised my fellow gossipiers that he would share with them how he prepares a meal, I have the privilege to expose he deep dark secrets J But one thing for sure... his recipe ALWAYS changes but somehow still tastes great, if not BETTER whenever he tries to improvise. Anyways, enough bragging about him... let's see the recipe for spaghetti carbonara... with a twist.

Here's what he used for the dish:

1. 3 – 4 cloves of garlic, diced finely
2. A bunch of halved baby roma tomatoes... or just go for any cherry tomatoes if u can't find them. Don't ask how many in a bunch, coz he would say... "Up to you laaar..." Anyways, I spied about 7 or 8 of them.
3. Diced sun dried tomatoes... a couple of them. But I saw that it's HALF the amount of baby tomatoes.
   


4. Bacon... a hand full of bacon chunks, not those sliced bacons. You can use those, but hubby said that would lack in both taste and texture. BUT you can use some of them to create some 'crisps' into your dish.
5. Egg yolks... ONE for EACH person.

Spaghetti... This is very important he say... in his exact words, "Don't be a cheap bastard and save RM1 – RM2 and buy stupid brands like San Remo. Go for the best... and by best, it's usually the weirdest name you find" For hubby, he prefers Barilla more than anything else... and it's not that much expensive than any of the cheapest brand around.

Preparation:

1. Start boiling about 3 – 4 litres of salted water. This is for your pasta... and trust me you need to do this first. Also, a few table spoons of olive oil into water.
2. Brown your bacon without any oil on a frying pan until you get something like the picture. Usually takes about 10 – 15mins on a medium high heat. Set aside.
   
   
   
3. By now, your water should start to boil... when this happens, throw in your spaghetti. Tip, do the twist when doing so, this will avoid your pasta from sticking together. And it's quite fun to do it that way too!
   
   

Barilla takes about 5mins to be 'al dente'... we don't even know what it means, but you'll know when you take a small bite of the pasta you don't feel any hard stuff... and it's NOT mushy.

So, while pasta is cooking, start heating another pan with olive oil... for 2 person, it's close to about 4 seconds from a out from the bottle. Coz he's not even sure how much he used!

Throw in garlic, Tomatoes (both fresh and dried ones) and throw it about for a while. Make sure you don't burn the garlic. Do all this in medium heat. When garlic doesn't look raw anymore, throw in browned bacon and stir this about. Add salt and pepper to taste... After this you should turn off the heat.







Tasting... now, it'll seem like there's NO SAUCE to taste, but the taste is actually in the oil. Just grab you spatula that you're using and swipe your finger over it. If it tastes too faint, then you need more salt. Just don't overdo it or you'll end up with a Cantonese stir fry noodle.

By now, your pasta should be cooked nicely. Drain them, dump them into your garlic, tomatoes and bacon mix. Oh, and right before you do that, throw in your egg yolks RIGHT before the pasta. Mix and serve...

Then I ask, "Hubby... aren't you cooking carbonara??" He said, "Well.. here you go!" Cream leh? Then he started his story about restaurants over commercializing AMERICAN carbonara... which adds cream and mushrooms and etc. Original carbonara doesn't contain any of these... just add in egg yolks into an aglio olio dish, and you have carbonara. Ooh... and you should add some parmesan cheese before you serve... it's just that he ran out of them when he did this dish.

Love,

Joey