Maddy’s Valentine Carbonara

It’s the season of love. And what better way to show love, than through food? Carbonara is my favourite pasta because it’s a recipe that makes just a few ingredients really sing.

All you need is pecorino or parmesan cheese, a long noodle of your choosing, eggs, pasta water, bacon (or guanciale if you’re fancy), salt and pepper.

This recipe is very simple – the only challenging step is incorporating the pasta water with the egg and cheese mixture. If you incorporate too quickly, you can make scrambled eggs instead of a velvety, smooth sauce. Scrambled eggs are great, but not in Carbonara!

This recipe only takes a few minutes to come together, and things happen quickly, so be sure to prep your ingredients ahead of time. If you’re looking for a special meal to treat yourself or your loved ones to this Valentine’s Day, look no further.

Ingredients:

4 Burnbrae Farms Naturegg Omega 3 shell eggs (two whole eggs and two yolks)

⅔  cup of cheese of your choice (pecorino or parmesan)

A bunch of black pepper and salt

6 slices of bacon or 1 cup of sliced guanciale, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 box of spaghetti, bucatini or linguine

Directions:

1. Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Be sure to salt it enough because this water becomes part of the sauce!

2. In a bowl mix together your Burnbrae Farms Naturegg Omega 3 eggs, cheese and pepper mixture. Add a pinch of salt (the cheese and bacon are salty, so you don’t want to overdo it).

3. In a pan, cook your bacon until crispy and set aside.

4. Drop your pasta into the water and cook until just shy of al dente (your pasta will cook more as you mix it into the sauce). Reserve roughly a cup of pasta water.

5. Place al dente noodles directly into the bacon pan, no need to drain them (a little extra water is good). Set the pan to low and add a little extra water if needed. The goal is to incorporate the noodles, fat and bacon.

6. Whisk ½ cup of your reserved pasta water into the cheese mixture. This tempers the eggs so that they don’t scramble in the pan.

7. Add the cheese mixture to the pan of bacon and noodles. Cook on low for two to three minutes, stirring continuously. If it looks a little dry, add more pasta water. If it looks soupy, cook for a few extra minutes.

8. Transfer to a bowl, top with extra pepper and parmesan.

Enjoy!

Maddy Kelly

800m Runner & Olympian