Recipe for "carbonara"

NAME

     CARBONARA - Spaghetti carbonara, Neapolitan style
     My wife and I had the pleasure of staying at the Villa  Vir-
     giliana (owned by The Vergilian Society) in Cuma, Italy just
     outside of Naples in June, 1985.  Biagio  and  Maria  Sgari-
     glia,  the  proprietors  of  the  villa, served us excellent
     Italian farm meals for a week, each meal  being  more  deli-
     cious   than  the  last.   This  dish  was  the  gastronomic
     highlight of our stay.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 3 to 4 people)

     500 g     thin spaghetti, rotini or equivalent pasta
     30 ml     olive oil
     250 g     pancetta or bacon
     1         medium yellow onion (chopped)
     125 ml    cold water
     60 ml     dry Italian white wine
     4         eggs
     60 ml     heavy cream
     100 g     parmesan cheese (grated)

PROCEDURE

          (1)  Put large bowl in oven to warm at lowest  possible
               setting.
          (2)  Soak chopped onion in cold water for 15 minutes to
               reduce pungency.
          (3)  Chop Pancetta or bacon into 5mmx2cm strips.
          (4)  Beat eggs and cream together with a fork.  Add  50
               g parmesan cheese to the mixture.
          (5)  Wash pasta.  Put on  water  to  cook  pasta.   Add
               pasta when boiling.  In the meantime...
          (6)  Dry onions and saute with  pancetta  or  bacon  in
               olive oil until onions are barely translucent.
          (7)  Add wine and  reduce  heat  when  initial  boiling
               ceases.  Meat should not be crisp.
          (8)  When pasta is cooked, drain, but do not wash.
          (9)  Quickly remove bowl from oven, put pasta in it and
               toss  with  egg,  cream and cheese mixture so that
               heat from pasta cooks eggs.
          (10) Add meat, onions and wine without draining fat and
               toss until thoroughly mixed.
          (11) Sprinkle remaining cheese to taste, toss and serve
               immediately.

NOTES

     Pasta should be cooked al dente so that it offers resistance
     to  the  teeth  without crunching.  Fresh pasta is desirable
     (dried pasta is a poor imitation of the real thing.)   Pasta
     should  be  used  immediately  when  done  so as to stop its
     internal cooking.  If both portions of the recipe cannot  be
     completed  at  the  same  time,  the  meat and onion mixture
     should finish first.
     I have made a very successful variation on  this  using  hot
     country  sausage.   Make  sure the sausage is fairly lean if
     you try it, however.  All of the quantities are  adjustable,
     and  may  depend  on  the kind of pasta or meat you use. Too
     much cream will cause the egg mixture to separate  from  the
     pasta  and  meat. Too little cream will essentially give you
     scrambled eggs and bacon with pasta.

RATING

     Difficulty: moderate to hard (timing is critical).  Time: 30
     minutes.  Precision: measure the ingredients.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Byron Howes
     North Carolina Education Computing Service, Research Triangle Park, NC
     bch@ecsvax  or  {akgua,decvax}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch