2010 Cooking club Week 33: Tagliatelle Carbonara with Garlic Bread

Decided to go with this after much deliberation. Was going to go for something complicated but thought it'd be better to go with something that I've been making for years and is really simple to make.
It's actually one of the first dishes that got me into cooking.

I know it's not the authentic Italian version as it contains cream but it's the way I learned to make it and I love it this way.

I've also included a simple garlic bread recipe (and I mean simple) to go with it, which goes great with all Italian dishes.


Ingredients

Tagliatelle Pasta - 4 Twirls per person
Streaky Bacon (you can you use any Smoked Bacon for this, I just go for your normal Smoked Streaky Bacon as it's easy to get) - 3 slices per person chopped
Cream - 250ml
Parmessan Cheese (Grated) - 1.5 tbsp
1 Egg
Garlic - 1 Clove Crushed
Mushrooms - about 6 (you can leave this out if you wish)
Olive Oil
Butter
Black Pepper


Garlic Bread
1 Baguette (Ideally a day old as it's easier to cut)
1 Clove of Garlic
Olive Oil

Serves 2




Prep all the Ingredients....

Chop the bacon into small uniform pieces
Chop the Mushrooms into small uniform pieces
Grate Parmessan and add to a bowl with cream, raw egg and plenty of black pepper and give it a quick mix with a fork



In a large pan of boiling slated water get the pasta on the go.

Once the pasta is ready, drain and coat with a good glug of Olive Oil and leave aside.



Heat some Olive Oil and Butter in a pan and add the Bacon. Before adding the Bacon I like to separate all the pieces as they tend to stick together in the pan and it's a pain to separate them when everything is cooking.



In another pan Heat some Oil and Butter and add the Mushrooms



Add the crushed Garlic into the Bacon halfway through cooking so as to give it enough time to cook but not too long to burn.
Once the Bacon and Mushrooms are cooked, set aside on some kitchen paper on a plate to drain off any excess fat.



I always set the Bacon aside and give the larger pan a quick wipe with some kitchen towel as it makes the dish less messy looking once the cream is added.

Now it's time to put the whole dish together.....


Put the cleaned pan back on a low heat and add the Bacon, Mushrooms and Pasta


Then add the Cream/Raw Egg/Parmessan and Black Pepper mixture to the Pan.



Give it all a good mix...



...and set aside....

At this stage you need to get your Garlic Bread on.

Just place the sliced Baguette under the grille and toast on both sides, or you can just put them in the toaster, but that takes much longer.

Once toasted, give each slice a rub of some raw garlic (don't over do it, one or two rubs is enough) and drizzle with some olive oil.



Now it's time to dish up....



...and most importantly.....Tuck in!!! :pac::pac:



Enjoy!