(Submitted by Marco Bongiovanni)
This is a course typical of the Rome area, but it gained recognition all over Italy and beyond.
For 4 people:
Ingredients:
1 lb of pasta (preferably spaghetti or penne)
4 eggs
Grounded parmesan cheese (about 4 full spoon)
Bacon
Salt and Pepper
Preparation:
Put water in a pot with a spoon of salt.
When the water is boiling, throw the pasta and cook it till
at "al dente" point, which means when it's not too chewy,
but still a little bit crunchy in the middle part. Usually
spaghetti takes 5 minutes after being thrown in, penne a
little bit more, like 8-ish.
Drain the pasta from water and put it in a big plate or
back in the pot itself.
At the same time of cooking the pasta, start preparing
the sauce so it will be ready as soon as the pasta is
cooked.
Put the yellow part of the eggs (never the white, jelly
stuff) in a plate and start scrambling them with a fork.
After some time scrambling, add the parmesan cheese and
keep scrambling all together till it becomes smooth and
creamy.
Chop the bacon into dice and fry it in a pan with a bit of butter or oil, till it becomes a little crispy.
The three components (pasta, eggs and bacon) should
ideally be ready at the same time.
Add slowly the eggs to pasta, being sure to stir the pasta
continuously to avoid that eggs will solidify because of
the pasta's heat. After the eggs, add the beacon and stir
in order to let the bacon spread around.
Serve on plates letting people adding salt, pepper and
more parmesan cheese at their wish.
It's better not adding salt during the preparation because
sometimes bacon is already salty enough.
Red wine is recommended.
Note:
I recommend De Cecco or Barilla as pasta brands. They can
be easily found in any market.
About the parmesan cheese, although is more expensive, I
would stay with the imported Grana Padano. Try to avoid
Vermont parmesan, etc. which are very good cheeses, but not
ok for this kind of sauce.