Thanks everyone for being so patient as I navigate my busy life. I promised to be back with details about my dinner so here you go.My second course was a pasta dish. I was inspired to make a carbonara based on a post over at Peter Minakis' Kalofagas Greek food blog. If you haven't been there before, you are missing out.
I followed his recipe pretty much as written except I doubled it. Instead of Romano cheese I used parmigiano reggiano. I did use pancetta. Worth the extra cost, definitely.
Ingredients (four small portions)
Linguini (I used a good artisan dried linguini from the market ~4 oz)
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced pancetta
splash of white wine
pasta water
black pepper
chopped parsley
The pasta was placed in a large pot of salted boiling water to cook. In a large pan was added the pancetta. It was cooked until rendered and crispy - but not darkened. The onions and garlic were added to the pan and cooked down until softened. While the onions were cooking the egg yolks were beaten and the cheese was whisked in. A splash of wine was added to the onions. When the pasta was cooked it was added to the onion/pancetta mixture along with a bit of the pasta water. The water contains some of the starch and helps thicken the sauce. You can always add more later if you don't have enough to loosen the sauce. The heat was turned off and the egg/cheese mixture was mixed with the pasta. Finally the chopped parsley and cracked black pepper were added.
That's it! Easy as pie and oh, so tasty.
