Also, I strongly recommend reading the instructions through once because the end part after the pasta is cooked goes quickly and you're not going to want to be running back and forth between the pasta and the recipe (it's pretty straightforward).
I've made the core instructions bold in case you want to skip my commentary.
Ingredients:
- Bacon - one package, regular type, whatever thickness you like
- Spaghetti - one package (you can use linguine or angel hair the first time but save the fancier shapes and the whole wheat for next time)
- One egg - regular chicken egg is good, anything fancier would be a waste
- Parmesan - get the shredded kind that looks like little sticks. The powder-type won't work and this is not worth hand-shredding your own. Trust me, just don't. You'll want the 5 oz container but more cheese never hurt anyone. If you have a whole foods you can get the stuff they shred in-store (get the tall container, it's easy to use up extra parmesan) but we grew up with belgioioso or whatever the standard grocery store one is so don't go out of your way to whole foods.
- White pepper - This is in the spice aisle and the only "fancy" ingredient you need. It is significantly different from black pepper and you definitely need it. I know it's tempting to ignore this one, but don't.
Directions:
- Put some water on to boil. If you salt your pasta water, go ahead and salt the water.
- While that's heating up, cook the bacon. You can do it on the stove or in the oven or in the microwave or however you normally do it. You want the bacon to be done before the pasta because you're going to cut it up and put it in the pasta later.
- Get a bowl large enough to accommodate the spaghetti later and crack an egg in the bottom. Scramble it up a bit with a fork and set aside. You can do this step at any point before the pasta goes in.
- Put the pasta in the water when it's boiling.
- Chop up the bacon while the pasta is cooking, set aside. If you're a slow chopper you might start this early. The pieces should be roughly square (with side length the width of the bacon) but this is a very rough guideline, do not bother measuring or even trying to make the pieces remotely uniform. If you've made your bacon crispy you can even crumble it by hand if you want (though try to keep at least some of the crumbs larger)
- When the pasta is al dente, drain it in a colander and then immediately dump it on the scrambly egg you prepared earlier. Stir immediately to mix the egg in with the pasta. Yes, you are dumping pasta onto a raw egg. The pasta has just come out of the boiling water and will cook the egg completely as you stir it in. Do not skip this step.
- Once it's stirred enough that you won't get a giant scrambled egg lump (usually just 4 - 6 stirs), dump in the cheese. If you got the 5 oz container, dump it all. If you got more than that start with about 5 oz (eyeball it, this is not an exact science) and add more as desired.
- Sprinkle some white pepper over the cheese. A little goes a long way so just give it one or two light shakes.
- Stir the cheese and pepper in, add bacon when it's mostly incorporated, then stir until it's even enough for your liking.
- Enjoy!
This is great left over if you manage not to eat it all right away.
The original recipe doesn't need improving but you can certainly play around with it and add in veggies or use different pasta or swap out the bacon for pancetta (probably more authentic). All I ask is that you try it the regular way first.
The original recipe doesn't need improving but you can certainly play around with it and add in veggies or use different pasta or swap out the bacon for pancetta (probably more authentic). All I ask is that you try it the regular way first.
