Spaghetti Carbonara

Last weekend I tried making spaghetti carbonara, it did not turn out so well.  I'm pretty sure the recipe was good I just didn't follow it very well.  The trouble comes from having two 3-year old sous chefs, they are pretty distracting and make it difficult to keep tabs of everything on the stove.  Particularly when you're trying a new recipe.

The recipe calls for the following:

• 12 ounces of spaghetti
• 6 slices of bacon
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup grated parmesean cheese
• 1 ½ teaspoons black pepper
• 2 tablespoons parsley

Carbonara works with any type of spaghetti noodle; none of the noodles with holes for chunky sauce and smooth noodles for thin sauces.  Pick a shape, any shape will do.  So I let the kids decide, and of course they couldn't reach a consensus.  One wanted rigatoni the other wanted rotini, and there was no compromise to be had.  Instead of forcing a decision I decided I'll just double the recipe, the leftovers will make good lunches during the week.  Salt in the water, wait for it to boil, add the noodles.

With the water going I cut the bacon up into little half-inch squares.  I'm a big fan of bacon, and a mere six slices wasn't going to cut it.  Besides I know when I cook with bacon I eat some while cooking, only to ensure it was cooked properly and that it hasn't degraded in quality of course.  So a whole pound of bacon is cut up and put in the frying pan.

The bacon takes about 8 minutes to get nice and crispy, just a little less time than it takes the noodles to cook.  I strain the noodles and save about a third of a cup of the starchy water and dump them in the frying pan with the bacon, and immediately I notice a problem.  See you need to toss the noodles around so they'll absorb the bacon flavor.  With the double load of noodles my frying pan is almost full to overflowing, any attempt to stir winds up spilling noodles on the stove.

Next step is to add the parmesean cheese, parsley, pepper, and eggs.  The goal is to keep everything moving so that the eggs coat the noodles, rather than clump at the bottom and become scrambled.  My pan was so full this was impossible to accomplish.

When it was all done there was a distinct layering to the dish.  At the top the noodles were pretty bare, as you went down you go more of the flavors and meal improved.  At the bottom there was this bacony scrambled eggs with noodles in it, kind of like a bizarre omelette.

I didn't think it tasted to bad.  The middles had this sweet spot which was really good, so I figure if I do this right next time it'll be a great dinner.