Spaghetti Carbonara

Chef Luis Felipe Lavieri

Ingredients

1L Goat milk or Cereal Cream
Olive oil
250 g of Pancetta or Bacon
1/2 small onion chopped finely
1/4 tbsp Garlic paste
250 g parmesan cheese
1 egg
400 g of Spaghetti

Directions

If using Dried Spaghetti
-In a large pot, add about 3-4 Liters of water, bring to a boil, add salt
-Cook The spaghetti to be still quite raw, 2-3 minutes less than the minimum time said in the package. (Usually 5-6 minutes should be ok)
-Strain the spaghetti
If the spahetti is fresh
-Wait for the next step that mentions spaghetti
Cut the bacon/pancetta into 1/4" pieces
In a pot (can be the same you used previously) sweat the onions in olive oil until translucent
Add the bacon/pancetta and cook about 90% (no full bacon color, but fat has stared melting and rendering)
Add Garlic Paste and Goat milk/cereal cream.
Bring to a boil
Add Spaghetti (either half cooked dried or uncooked fresh)
Stir constantly for 2/3 minutes, making the sauce thicken with the starch from the spaghetti
Add parmesan cheese and continue stirring for about a minute
Take off heat
When it has stopped bubbling, add the 1 egg and stirr vigorously. The heat from the sauce will cause the egg to clump and cook before mixed in if left to rest, but needs to be hot enough for the egg to cook.

This dish is the quintecential traditional Roman dish. The history is quite interesting, hence some of the ingredients being a little bit less than common. The spaghetti carbonara comes from a coal mine just north of Roma. There was a cave in at the mine and the miners were stuck with only a goat, rationed water, an old piece of ham, and dried pasta. Rather than use up what little water they had, the milked the goat and cooked the pasta in the goat milk and the dried ham. They liked the dish so much, that after they were rescued, they continued to eat the dish perfecting it to what we have today. Traditionally garlic is not part of the recipe, but I have adapted it and found that the north american market is very receptive to the change. The difference between Pancetta and bacon is having a more smokey flavour, which again tends to be more of a north american taste. Goat milk is not always available, but has roughly similar fat content as cereal cream.