Carbonara Saturday

This week at school is a particularly hectic one. Sam and I both have tests, papers, work, and miscellaneous other things keeping us busy. We saw it coming, so we took Saturday to head to his house. Part of the reason for our going was so that I could do some laundry and so we could both relax in a stress-free environment. The other reason was that when I get stressed out, I feel the need to cook. It's my favorite way to decompress; I like it more than watching wedding shows and napping. What made Saturday's kitchenfest so much better was that Sam wanted to cook with me.

I really wanted to take advantage of the fact that we had a full kitchen to use, and I hadn't stopped thinking about carbonara ever since the Olive Garden nightmare I'd consumed a few weeks ago. The decision was made to concoct our own version of Frank's carbonara as best we could.

Frank never wrote down his carbonara recipe, but we knew the basics. What we ended up with was not too far off the mark, but it wasn't exactly the same because we did a few things differently.

You'll need six eggs, a yellow and orange pepper, a package of bacon, some olive oil, and angel hair pasta for this recipe.

To make carbonara, you first and foremost need pasta. You can ultimately make it with any type of pasta, but we stuck with one of our favorites -- angel hair. You'll also need peppers (sweet ones, not hot ones; we used one orange and one yellow), a package (or two) of bacon, six eggs, and some olive oil. We really eyeballed everything as far as quantity of ingredients goes because neither of us had ever cooked Frank's carbonara with him. In the end, we would have benefited from more bacon because we used so much pasta. This recipe also leaves you with a TON of leftovers, so be prepared to eat nothing but carbonara for a few days straight (which, let's be honest, would be hands down the best couple days of your entire food life).

First things first: get a giant pot of water going on the stove. Since more water means a longer time waiting for it to boil, you can use the in-between time to do the rest of your prep work. Sam and I divided the duties between us to make for easier, quicker work.

You can cook your chopped up peppers in leftover bacon grease or olive oil. We chose to cook it in bacon grease after Sam's mom suggested we do so in order to save ourselves another dish to wash.

After putting the pot on, take out a cutting board and wash and dice the peppers. This was my job. At the same time, Sam cooked the bacon (with some help from his mom). It doesn't really matter which order you do this in, just keep in mind that you'll have to cook the peppers later. Per Sam's mom's suggestion, we wound up cooking our peppers in the bacon grease. Although that's not how Frank cooks his peppers (he does it in olive oil), it yielded delicious results. It was also one of the main reasons why our carbonara didn't taste exactly like Frank's; after he cooks his peppers in olive oil, he pours the entire pan -- oil and all -- into the pot of pasta. While the peppers cooked, Sam and I broke the crisped bacon into bits.

Before adding the peppers and bacon to the pasta, though, you have to add the eggs. Depending on the amount of pasta you're making, you'll want to use a different number of eggs. We used a pound-and-then-a-little-leftover-pasta-from-a-box-in-the-cabinet, and since it was going to be enough for two people, we used six eggs. Frank usually makes enough carbonara for the entire country, and uses a dozen eggs. Before adding the eggs to the pasta, though, crack them into a measuring cup and scramble them. When you pour them into the freshly-strained pasta, the heat in the pot cooks them. The angel hair becomes coated in subtle eggy flavor. It is to die for.

After adding the eggs and mixing the pasta, you can add your peppers and ripped-up bacon. At this point, you're essentially finished. This is where we realized the one thing we forgot, a small yet potentially crucial ingredient: garlic. We had originally planned to add garlic to the pot of carbonara, or to cook our peppers in olive oil with garlic, or something, and it completely slipped our minds.

The finished carbonara.

The finished product was almost exactly what I wanted from the dish, almost everything I'd been craving in the past couple of weeks. Since Sam is 21 now, he went to the package store and picked out a sparkling red wine (a red champagne) to go with it. We ate an early dinner -- it was about 2:30 or 3 -- by candlelight in his dining room. We added parmesan cheese to our carbonara too -- to die for.

We also bought a fresh loaf of ciabatta bread from Stop & Shop, heated it up in the oven just before meal time, and dipped it in a small bowl of olive oil in between heaping forkfuls of carbonara.

Problems I ran into
No serious problems were faced during the making of this meal. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to cook the peppers in olive oil. I'm pretty sure that was the one thing that would have made it identical to Frank's carbonara because the oil would have given it a different texture. Next time.