Category: Side dishes

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Another wonderful traditional peasant dish from Italy! That’s what I thought when I first tasted spaghetti alla carbonara. After all, the name suggests that this is a dish for charcoal burners (“carbonari” in Italian), who undoubtedly appreciated a filling meal that didn’t cost a lot.

Alas, the recipe seems to have been created to use the bacon and eggs given to the starving civilians of Rome by the U.S. Army at the end of World War II. Even if spaghetti alla carbonara is not something that Michelangelo ate for lunch while painting the Sistine Chapel, it is possible that he sat down to a plateful of spaghetti con cacio e uova (spaghetti with cheese and eggs), which is a similar dish minus the bacon but with the grease.

And since my speculator* is working at full speed today, let me say that the good women of Rome may have created the recipe to serve to the charcoal burners bringing fuel from the countryside to a city lacking power that first winter after the war. Whatever the origin of the recipe, spaghetti alla carbonara is a deliciously simple dish.

Today, many people omit the “alla” (which means “to” in Italian) from the name, but whatever you call it, “spaghetti carbonara” or “spaghetti alla carbonara” is a wonderful change from the red sauces and heavy cream sauces most of us associate with pasta dishes. The sauce consists only of eggs, a little oil and Parmesan cheese. If you like bacon, eggs and cheese, chances are good that you will enjoy this recipe.

Here is how to put it on the table in half an hour.

INGREDIENTS:

1 T olive oil
1/2 pound extra thick sliced bacon
3 or 4 cloves garlic
1 lb. spaghetti
4 large eggs
1 1/4 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh parsley leaves for garnish

PROCEDURE:

Put four large eggs in a bowl of warm water. Bring four or five quarts of water to a boil in a large pot or or Dutch oven.

While the water is heating, cut the bacon into half inch pieces. Peel and mince the garlic. You should have about a tablespoon of minced garlic. Grate the Parmesan cheese and set it aside.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil into a large skillet and add the bacon. Fry the bacon over medium heat until slightly crisp. Remove the bacon and drain it on a paper towel in a bowl. Remove the skillet from the heat. You should have about three tablespoons of oil in the skillet. Dip out or add a little as necessary.

Beat the eggs until they are lemon yellow in a small bowl. Whisk about half the grated Parmesan cheese and a quarter teaspoon salt into the eggs.

When the water comes to a boil, add a teaspoon of salt and the spaghetti. Cook eight or nine minutes to the al dente stage. Before draining the spaghetti, reserve a cup of the pasta water.

About two minutes before the spaghetti is done, return the skillet to the burner, turn the heat to medium and sauté the garlic for half a minute. Return the bacon to the skillet and make a generous grind of fresh black pepper over the bacon. Turn the heat to low.

Now you have to work quickly. Drain the spaghetti and put it in the skillet with the bacon and garlic. Mix everything together for about a minute. Turn off the heat and dribble the eggs into the hot pasta while you stir briskly to keep the eggs from curdling. Sprinkle on the rest of the grated Parmesan cheese and stir until you have a smooth sauce covering each strand of spaghetti. If the sauce seems too thick and dry, stir in a few tablespoons of the hot pasta water until you have the consistency you want.

Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Mound on individual plates and garnish with a little chopped parsley. Serve with a green salad and a red wine such as Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or a good domestic Pinot Noir.

NOTES: It is important to have the eggs at or a little above warm room temperature so they will cook properly in the hot spaghetti.

Do not use the grated Parmesan cheese sold in plastic jars. You can buy grated Parmesan cheese in the dairy case at the supermarket or better yet, buy a wedge of good Parmesan cheese and grate it just before you use it. The better the cheese, the better the flavor. Top of the line is Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is imported from Italy and pricy, but a good quality domestic Parmesan cheese will work fine.

If you don’t have one already, consider picking up a cheese grater. It has a little hopper that you put a chunk of cheese in so it rests against a metal drum turned with a small crank. The grater handle is hinged. You press the cheese against the drum with the handle while you turn the crank and watch the grated cheese pile up on a plate. These gadgets sell for under ten dollars, and they are worth every penny.

*If you want to know what a speculator is, click here: The Speculator.

Perfect Popcorn

Uncle George was my father’s older brother. He had a farm near Orchard, Nebraska and came to visit Grandma and Grandpa Rang every couple years when I was growing up. He raised corn, hogs and beef cattle. When we visited Uncle George and Aunt Alice and their family in Nebraska one time, my cousin Vernon took me out to see all the piglets. Vernon was seven and I was nine.

We climbed over the fence into the farrowing pen and watched the piglets nursing on the biggest sow I had ever seen. I am still impressed by that massive sow. Vernon then showed me the bull, the grain bins and his father’s big John Deere tractor, which also impressed me. It was an exciting introduction to another way of life that I shared with everyone when we came back into the house for supper.

Vernon’s mother was not pleased to hear that we had gone into the pen with the sow. I remember her saying that we could have been attacked and killed. But, young as he was, he had been taught to be careful around the sow. We did not go too close and so we lived to eat a good supper and have a ride around the fences on a wagon pulled behind the tractor.

One time Uncle George brought us some popcorn from his garden. For some reason it had never occurred to me that farmers like Uncle George could grow popcorn, and it prompted me to start begging my father to plant popcorn. When he explained that northern Wisconsin was not a good place to grow popcorn, I just kept saying that maybe if we tried we would have all the popcorn we wanted.

We planted two short rows of popcorn the next summer, and I hoed it with special care. I even carried water in buckets on my wagon to irrigate the rows during a bad dry spell in July. A frost in August before the kernels were hard ended my hopes, and we never tried growing popcorn again. Today I understand that some varieties have been developed that mature in a shorter time.

So we kept buying our popcorn at the A & P or Co-op, and my mother popped lots of it, especially in the winter. Watching “Gunsmoke,” “Dragnet” or “The Red Skelton Show” was even more fun with popcorn fresh from the pan and I think I saw my first Shakespearean play on “The Hallmark Hall of Fame” while chomping away. Mom first popped it in her large frying pan until she got an electric popper.

Our cook at Blair School, the one-room school I attended for three years, popped gallons of popcorn for us about two weeks before Christmas. She and our teacher showed us how to make ropes of popcorn and cranberries that we used to decorate the school Christmas tree. On the day before Christmas vacation, the janitor would show up early, and we would all help move the tree outside so the birds and rabbits would have a special Christmas treat too.

Once I entered college I graduated to an electric popper that was actually a multifunction food cooker used for everything from frying fish to warming soup. Over the years we have used at least two different electric poppers, a popper designed to be held in the fireplace or over a bonfire, many different frying pans and skillets and even those handy little packets you put in the microwave. The one thing that all these devices have in common is that they always leave a bunch of “old maids,” unpopped kernels, in the bottom of the bowl.

When a neighbor gave us an ice cream pail full of premium popcorn kernels last fall, I decided to search the Web for a popcorn recipe that might solve this problem. In a few minutes I found one on a wonderful food blog called “Simply Recipes.” I followed the instructions and am happy to report that it works. The ice cream pail is nearly empty, and I have had fewer than four old maids in any batch. Here is what you do.

INGREDIENTS:

3 T canola oil or other high smoke point vegetable oil
1/3 cup high quality popcorn kernels
Salt to taste

PROCEDURE:

Heat the oil and four kernels of popcorn over medium high heat in a three or four quart covered saucepan or skillet. When the kernels pop, remove the pan from the heat and add the corn. Cover the pan and swirl the kernels in the hot oil for thirty seconds.

Return the pan to the heat. The kernels will begin popping in a few seconds. Gently shake the pan over the burner. After the corn has been popping a few seconds, you can lift the lid slightly while shaking the pan to release any steam.

When the popping slows to a couple of seconds between pops, take the pan from the heat and dump the popcorn into a large bowl. Salt lightly and serve immediately.

NOTES: Popcorn pops because the moisture in the kernel expands when heated. Like any food product, popcorn dries out gradually. When I popped some from a partial bag of popcorn which had been hiding on a shelf for several years at the cabin, only half of the kernels popped, so buy good quality popcorn and try to use it within a year.

Some folks like to add melted butter to their popcorn, and until theaters started using imitation butter I used to order it when we went to movies. I love butter, but it makes my fingers greasy when I am eating popcorn. Besides, popcorn is one healthful food that I like as is. I do have some cheese-flavored salt that is pretty tasty, however.

Elise Bauer has a good explanation of why this method works so well. You can visit her site at simplyrecipes.com.