So earlier today I had a disastrous lunch at Burrito House, but never mind, as promised (mostly to myself) tonight I have cooked one of my favorite meals, my version of Jamie Oliver’s Sausage Carbonara or ‘linguine alla carbonara di salsiccia’. Now I do take some liberties with the recipe which all good home cooks should do, I have made this at least 50 times, and have gradually worked out how I like to eat it, and more importantly through experimentation on my friends and family what gets the best response, usually measured in oohs and aahs!

Now this recipe comes from Jamie’s Book “Jamie’s Italy” which accompanied his TV series of the same name, I don’t know if it was shown in America. If you are lucky enough to be able to go to one of Jamie’s resturants in the UK, then he has this on the menu there, and for those of you who travel I have heard that he is about to open one of his resturants at Gatwick airport in the UK (just in case you are passing through). OK but back to the food.

This is the ‘official’ recipe, but as I already note I may have adjusted it slightly, and it really does not matter what type of pasta you use. I get the ingredients together and a glass of wine (of course).

So instead of ‘sausage’ meat I like to use meatballs and the ones from “Whole Foods” are pretty good if you break them in half. I like to get my pancetta from “Fox and Obel” as they cut it nice and thick so you can cube it, but today I did not want to trek over there so I roasted and then chopped up some Black Forest bacon from Whole Foods.

So now the easy bit is putting the bacon and the meat balls into the oven at about 400F to let them crisp up for about 20mins. I usually put the water for the pasta on to boil after about 10 mins while I get the carbonara sauce ready. All that needs is some cream, a couple of egg yolks, some lemon juice (Jamie uses the zest but I like it more lemony), and some good quality parmesan cheese.

Then once the pasta is cooked it is just a case of mixing it all together in a pan quickly over a light heat. Jamie says you have to be careful not to heat it too quickly or it will turn into scrambled eggs. In all the time I have done it that has never happened so either I am doing it wrong or I am just right 🙂

After all that just tip onto a plate, add the meatballs and bacon, and perhaps a little bit of parmesan to top it off.

Now we are talking, I was very happy after this and together with a ‘small’ glass of wine I just threw on a Jamie Video to make the food night complete.