Macho Menu: Spaghetti ala Carbonara

Historical May 1985 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

(Editor’s Note: The silliness of last month’s column gives way this month to the sublime of this month’s—for this editor, anything having to do with pasta is heaven—and also introduces a new neighbor. Dwight Matthews moved into Parkview with his family last May. Ellen, his wife, is one of our writers as well as a board member.

They have two sons—one 3 years old and another six months. Dwight is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University.

In order to continue eating his own cooking, his main hobbies are fitness and exercise oriented.) by Dwight Matthews A properly prepared macho dish must follow certain basic guidelines, i.e. be cheap, simple, use macho spices (garlic, pepper and onion), and can be eaten while consuming alcohol from any desired shape of bottle—preferably during the preparation phase, too. Therefore, I present to you “spaghetti ala carbonara” macho supremo. Oh yes, this dish also tastes great. Ingredients To serve 6: 1½ lb of spaghetti 10 slices of bacon, chopped into ca. 2″ squares 1 onion, finely chopped 8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 1 chili pepper pod, finely chopped (or 1-2 tsp chili pepper seeds) 6 large eggs black pepper from a pepper mill Parmesan cheese olive oil 1.

In a 10″ skillet fry bacon until reasonably done.

There are three variants at this point: animal, vegetable, or mineral. (a) You enjoy bacon grease and do not worry about what people who shop at health food stores like to say about consuming animal fat. Therefore, leave the bacon grease in the skillet and continue on to the next step. (b) Drain bacon grease from the skillet and replace with 6-8 tblsp of olive oil, and continue on. (c) Drain bacon grease and replace with mineral oil—the author recommends this option only for the S & M crowd. 2. Start cooking the spaghetti.

It should be prepared al dente, which gives you just enough time to complete step 3. 3. Add onion, garlic, red pepper, and several turns of black pepper from a pepper mill to the skillet. Saute until all ingredients are quite crispy.

As the bacon gets crispy, it can be broken into small pieces with a fork. 4.

At this point there are again two variants: (a) Break eggs into a large bowl, and whisk. Quickly drain the spaghetti, and add spaghetti and entire contents of skillet to the bowl. Add Parmesan cheese and black pepper and toss thoroughly.

The dish is ready to serve. Of course this approach is the stereotypical “little lady does the cooking in the kitchen routine while hubbie gets the guests loosened up in the living room with lively conversation and martinis” method of serving dinner and in no way qualifies as a MACHO performance. Therefore, I heartily recommend the second option. (b) Find the guests, whether they be milling about the kitchen with you—my approach because I always keep the pitcher of martinis close to me, ergo the guests too—or are in the sitting room spilling booze onto your expensive pre-Ayatollah [sp?] Persian rug. Seat the guests at the table.

Each place setting should include 2 forks (see below), placed on opposite sides of the plate, although I prefer to use a wide shallow bowl (such as the style sold by Pfaltzgraff) instead of a conventional plate.

A plate is acceptable; it’s just harder to contain the spaghetti during the tossing.

Now for the tough part: reaching over the shoulder of each guest, crack a raw egg onto each plate with one hand— the one hand bit is what makes it tough, but it looks great. Ask each guest if he/she would like Parmesan cheese and/or pepper.

If so, sprinkle/grate cheese and/or pepper over eggs.

By now the guests are either curious or alarmed about what the meal is to be. Therefore, without comment, return to the kitchen to let them ponder their situation.

Now you can drain and place the spaghetti into a serving dish, and pour the contents of the skillet into a gravy server. Returning to the dining room, place spaghetti on top of the egg on each plate, pour some oil/bacon/ garlic/onion/pepper on top, and instruct each guest to start tossing his/her spaghetti with the two forks.

If you do this right, each guest’s plate will have been pre-warmed, the spaghetti will be piping hot, and the egg will become more or less cooked during the tossing.

The serving dish for the spaghetti should also be prewarmed.

The big mistake during the wintertime is not warming the plates, etc., so you end up with a lukewarm dinner. Do not heat the plates to a macho ” ‘I will burn your hands if you touch me,’ signed the plate” level, just warm them for a few minutes in the oven. Likewise, the eggs should be removed from the refrigerator a couple hours ahead of time to warm to room temperature, but they can be warmed briefly in the oven, too. Remember of course, that if you forgot to remove the eggs from the refrigerator just a couple hours earlier, you are equally likely to forget to remove the eggs from the oven now, and you should set a timer, else you may be in for another major fight with your wife as to whose turn it is to clean the oven.

The microwave is acceptable for warming the eggs only if you routinely use it to dry your poodle (a tip we received from Tom Hoerr, see this column last issue), else nix the microwave.

The beauty of this recipe is that it is simple, fast and requires very little advance planning since every home has bacon, garlic, and spaghetti on hand, right?

The meal is ameniable to either white or red wine and beer and can be prepared with the usual side dishes (e.g. a salad) served either with or after the main course.

Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, May 1985.

Read this article in the original newspaper issue.

Original source: SD_Times1985_05.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.