Friday, February 12, 2010

Easy Pasta Carbonara

The idea to include cream cheese in this recipe came to me only because I bought two tubs on special and needed to find a way to use it up. Surprisingly, it turned out better than any carbonara I have made to date. The cream cheese is killer in the sauce-- making it creamier. Don't worry about using raw eggs in this- they cook in the hot pasta.
This makes an easy dinner during busy weeknights.

8 oz smoked bacon or pancetta, cubed
1 small onion, chopped
3 tablespoons light cream cheese
1/4 cup milk (skim to full fat- whatever you've got)
1 whole egg
1 egg  yolk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3 green (spring) onions, trimmed and sliced thin
12 oz. spaghetti

1) Place a huge pot of hot, salted water on to boil (covered).
2) Cook the bacon until limp then add in the chopped onion and continue to saute until onion is cooked and bacon is crisp-ish. Remove from the heat and plop the cream cheese into the saute pan. Cover and set aside.
3) In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, egg yolk, Parmesan and sliced green onions. Once the pasta is cooked al dente, drain SAVING ASIDE 1/3 to 1/2 cup (4 oz) of the cooking water. Immediately toss the pasta into the bowl with the eggs, etc. and toss in the cooking water. Chuck in the cooked bacon and cream cheese, too. Toss well, add in the milk, stir until creamy. Serve with more Parmesan.

Serves 4-6

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Week 3 on "The Quest": I just finished the leftovers after getting home late tonight from a business trip, and it was still fantastic. My only question is, when do I add the 1/4 cup of milk? I had to wing it.

JennyB said...

Brad, you are the cham-peen of recipe testers! Sorry about the lack of milk direction, it has now been amended. The milk should be added after everything else and stirred to make the sauce a bit creamy.

Keep on keepin' on,
JennyB