Quick carbonara pasta

Maybe I shouldn’t admit this when I’m giving you the recipe, but I’m not terribly fond of carbonara. It’s just not the dish I look for on the menu at an Italian place. Today, though, circumstances pushed me into making it, the quick and simple version. For one thing, I didn’t have much time to cook (sometimes you have to get some work done to pay for what you cook). For another, I found that wretched packet of bacon in the fridge, sliced and everything, with a use-by date of 23.11.2013. And there’s a third reason: I couldn’t find my favourite black olives in the pantry. With those and the bacon I could have rustled up a pretty good pasta sauce.

Without the olives, that idea fell a bit flat. But I fancied pasta, so carbonara it was. And I’ll be perfectly honest with you. This probably isn’t the best carbonara in the world, but you can make it in exactly 22 minutes. The whole thing, a finished dish in 22 minutes from start to finish. It’s a decent enough carbonara. So if you like bacon with cream and egg and you haven’t got much time, I can recommend this recipe with a clear conscience. It’s not a classic carbonara, though. That one should have cheese in it too (I don’t like mine with cheese).

At a glance:

Prep time: 22 minutes

Serves: 1 hungry person (just scale up the ingredients if you want more)

How many calories: a 300 gram portion has 1104 kcal (I checked after I ate it. I feel ill…)

Ingredients for a quick carbonara:

• 150 grams of bacon (as I said, mine came in a packet, already sliced, which knocks about 2.5 minutes off the prep time)
• 1/4 of a large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• about 150 grams of pasta (I used tortiglioni, the big fat tubes. They take about 10 minutes to cook al dente, but use any pasta you like)
• 1 hen’s egg
• 4 tablespoons of 12% cream for soups and sauces
• dried herbes de Provence
• pepper
• salt
• olive oil
• four sweet cherry tomatoes (I had nothing green to garnish it with, not even a basil leaf, so feel free to leave them out, though they taste fine here)

Method (preparare un pasto):

I promised 22 minutes, so start your stopwatch (it’ll also come in handy for keeping the pasta from overcooking). Go.

I get the pasta water on first: water into the pot, a little salt, “heat” up full, then I wait for it to boil. Meanwhile I heat some olive oil in a frying pan and add the bacon (mine’s already cut up straight from the packet, so if yours is in one piece, cut it into 1 cm strips). The water starts boiling, in go my tortiglioni, and I give them 10 minutes to cook al dente.

I chop the onion very finely and add it to the bacon, which is frying over medium “heat” (5 on a scale of 1 to 10). A minute later (enough time to peel and chop them) I add the two garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped. Now I’ve got time to make the sauce. I beat one egg in a bowl, add 4 tablespoons of cream and mix thoroughly. You want a smooth mixture of cream and egg. I throw in about a tablespoon of herbes de Provence and mix it again.

The pasta should be cooked by now. I drain it, wipe every bit of water out of the pot (ideally it should stay hot) and put the pot back on the hob. I’ll need it to mix the pasta with the sauce.

I pour the egg and cream mixture into the frying pan and stir thoroughly. I season with salt and pepper. I let it simmer for about 3 to 4 minutes until the sauce is fairly thick. I put the drained, dry pasta back in the pot it cooked in (remember, the inside of the pot needs to be dry) and add the sauce. I give it a good mix and that’s it. On the plate, I garnish it with 3 to 4 cherry tomatoes. Stop. You can stop the clock now. How did you do for time? Enjoy!