1. I confess. I have not come to grips with the difference between prosciutto and pancetta, probably for the shallow reason that both words start with a "p". So, today, I blasted over to Yoke's to do some shopping for family dinner. I would be preparing Pasta Carbonara. I found an uncomplicated recipe and it called for pancetta. I figured pancetta wouldn't be available at Yoke's and my plan was to buy center cut, thick bacon as a substitute.
Yoke's has a case near their pizza/deli station with some finer cheeses and meats in it and, lo and behold, I found -- wait for it -- prosciutto there. I didn't have the Pasta Carbonara recipe with me and I thought, at that moment, that the recipe called prosciutto (it actually called for pancetta). So I put a package of prosciutto along with a chunk of Champagne cheese and a package of four meats labeled antipasto and a container of mixed olives in my cart.
I wandered around the store, at first thinking there was no need to buy bacon, but a voice of caution whispered from inside me that it might be a good idea to have it on hand as a Pasta Carbonara backup -- or, just to have on hand for other cooking projects.
I arrived home, double checked the recipe and, sure enough, I had confused prosciutto and pancetta. The recipe, in fact, called for diced pancetta. The slices of prosciutto I purchased were as thin as onion skin. I did a little recipe research regarding prosciutto in Pasta Carbonara and discovered that prosciutto is a good ingredient, but the recipes called for thicker slices than what I bought.
Fortunately, I had purchased the bacon as a back up and eventually I decided I'd include both bacon and prosciutto in tonight's Pasta Carbonara and see how that worked.
2. I had arranged with Carol to fix the Pasta Carbonara at hers and Paul's house. I wanted to be able to serve the Pasta Carbonara as soon after cooking it as possible -- in other words, I didn't want to fix it at home and drive it over to the Roberts' house.
To prepare to fix the Pasta Carbonara on the road, I cut up some bacon into small pieces, cut up some prosciutto, finely grated some of my Kirkland Signature Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio cheese, and cracked two whole eggs and separated out one additional egg yolk and put all of this in four separate containers. I packed the containers in my smaller Dutch oven, loaded up the sliced meats, cheese, olive mix, and package of spaghetti in a bag, and headed over to Carol and Paul's.
3. Once at Carol and Paul's I got down to business. I prepared the appetizer plate with the meats, cheese, and olive mix along with slices of baguette from the Blackboard in Wallace.
I put on a pot of boiling water.
I warmed up the Dutch oven and started the bacon sizzling and later, well toward the end of the bacon's cooking time, tossed in pieces of prosciutto. In the meantime, I whisked the eggs and much of the grated cheese together in a bowl. When the spaghetti was done cooking, I saved out a half a cup of pasta water, drained the spaghetti and tossed it in the Dutch oven with the bacon and prosciutto. I added the pasta water to the egg and cheese mixture, whisked it together, and poured it over the pasta and meat blend and continued tossing it, topped with the rest of the grated cheese, and PRESTO! I had made my first ever Pasta Carbonara.
Now we were ready for our family dinner.
Christy brought a bottle of Prosecco and we enjoyed it with our appetizers.
Christy also made a terrific, crisp Caesar salad with a light vinaigrette dressing, nicely offsetting the richness of the Pasta Carbonara.
Carol did a beautiful job roasting a delicious batch of broccoli.
Carol and Paul also contributed a silky Pinot Noir, a perfect light bodied red wine for this meal.
We also ate baguette slices with our dinner.
For dessert, I brought a small container of caramel cookie crunch gelato and Carol had some oak vanilla gelato left over from an earlier family dinner and she served us each a combination of the two. It was a refreshing way to round out our meal.
Conversation bounced all over the place with the gardening season getting underway, news about people and places in the Silver Valley, and what lies ahead for all of us over the next month or two or summer approaches.
No comments:
Post a Comment