You're tired. You're hungry. What better meal to make than something that is filling, delicious, and comes together with ingredients that you usually have in your fridge all the time (if you don't keep parmigiano reggiano in your fridge at all times this website is not for you)

This recipe is fairly true to form - no cream, just eggs - and you can choose to include the pork or not to make this vegetarian friendly, or just lighter overall.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup diced pancetta/salted pork (optional)

3 egg yolks

1 egg

1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano, grated

1/2 cup pecorino romano, grated

450 g (1 lb) of spaghetti, linguine or fettucine

Salt and Pepper to taste

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

Saute pan

Large pot for cooking pasta

Tongs

Directions

1. Fill a large pot with 6-8 cups of water and set it on a burner to heat (while you cook the pancetta)

2. In a bowl, whisk together the 3 eggs yolk and 1 full egg with the parmiggiano and pecorino romano. Set aside.

3. If the water in your large pot is boiling at this point, add in the fettuccine/pasta. Make sure to stir vigorously when your first add the pasta to the water to prevent the pasta from sticking to itself. Stir every 2 minutes until al dente (read pasta box for cook time, usually 7 minutes)

4. While the pasta is cooking, heat the sauté pan on a burner on medium high heat. Once hot, add the pancetta and until crisped on the outside, about 3-4 minutes. Remove the saute pan and pancetta from the hot burner and set aside until the pasta is cooked to al dente.

5. Once the pasta is cooked to al dente, add it to the sauté pan using tongs (don’t worry about draining the pasta, we want some of the water to move to the sauté pan with the pasta). Now add in the egg and cheese mixture and stir vigorously until all the pasta is coated in the mixture. No need to bring the burner over heat, the heat of the pasta should suffice.

6. Taste your pasta, add salt and pepper to your liking, and if the sauce is too dry, add some water from the pasta pot to make the sauce smoother

7. Serve with a light dusting of parmiggiano reggiano and enjoy!

Get the print version here

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