Tagliatelle Carbonara with homemade garlic bread

This recipe is a fast, filling, ittle number. If you're out of fresh veg or you want something to eat on your lap in front of the TV, if you're down to just milk and eggs in the fridge or you're short of time, this is the coming-in-late-but-I-still-want-to-eat meal. It also makes pretty good leftovers if you overcater.

The garlic bread recipe is sweet and simple and tastes way better than that supermarket crap, and it takes no longer to prepare. I promise.

For the tagliatelle, you will need:

1 large saucepan, 1 small saucepan;
1 mixing bowl;
2 eggs;
Pepper;
Parmesan or Cheddar cheese;
Bacon, salami or ham;
Milk;
Olive oil;
Tagliatelle - recipe is for dried pasta, not fresh.

For the garlic bread, you will need:

1 of those 'cook-yourself' baguettes;
butter;
garlic cloves;
mixed herbs;
A baking tray.

Tagliatelle

It's important to get this done in the right order. Firstly, in the small saucepan, put a splash of olive oil. Put it on the hob on a medium heat, wait for 30 seconds, and then chuck in your meat. You need to let it cook for several minutes to make sure it's crispy. If it's supermarket ham, then you need to make sure that all of the water content has cooked out. You'll be able to tell because it'll shrivel up and darken.

When your meat is adequately frizzled, take the pan from the hob and drain the contents onto some kitchen roll. The best way to do this is to get several sheets of the stuff, stack it up, then pour the oil and ham straight on to it. Dab the ham with the kitchen roll, then put the ham aside on a plate and discard the kitchen roll.

On to the cheesy sauce. Take your eggs. You have to separate the yolk from the white and there's a knack to this. In this case, we're not retaining the egg white (although you may wish to for whatever purpose) and it can go straight down the sink.

Find a knife or fork, cup the egg in the palm of one hand and strike it using the edge of the knife or fork. The shell will crack neatly and you can now prise it into two halves. Pour the white into one half, keeping the yolk put.

One system that I find works extremely well is to separate the egg through my fingers. Crack the shell and pour the contents carefully into the palm of your hand, keeping your fingers just slightly parted. The yolk - assuming you haven't shattered it when cracking the shell - will stay put whilst the white runs through your fingers and into the sink.

When you've got your two egg yolks in the bowl, add a dash of milk and beat with a fork. It'll mixup into a yellowy-white froth. Once it's done this, add some more milk. I'd estimate perhaps half a pint per person, but once you've done this recipe you'll know what suits you best.
Beat the mixture again to mix it all up, and then add plenty of ground pepper.

Next, grate the cheese directly into the egg/milk/pepper combo.

When you've finished this, you'll have a plate with some cooling frizzled meat, a bowl with some eggs, milk, cheese and pepper in it, and a saucepan of water. Put a sprinkling of salt in the water. Heat the saucepan until the water is boiling.

Now for the pasta. Now tagliatelle can be - not to put too fine a point on it - a bugger. Because it tends to be longer than your saucepan is wide, the only alternative to snapping it and thus losing the long strands is to slowly feed it into the water, which can be a nuisance and - if you're on a gas hob on high heat - will char one side of your hand quite adequately. It's up to you how you do this, but if - like me - your pasta's longer than your pan you typically have to hold one end of the tagliatelle whilst the other end softens. If you rest it on the pan it'll burn.

You need to make sure you stir the pasta up and keep it separate, otherwise the strands will stick together and it becomes pretty nasty.

After 5-10 minutes of cooking, the pasta should have softened and started to change colour. Drain the water off and return the pasta to the pan. Now throw in the meat, stir it together, then add your cheese mix. Turn the heat down to low and keep stirring your carbonara. When it changes texture, to slightly sticky, and all the cheese has melted, it's cooked.

Garlic bread

Preheat your oven to 220C. Get a small bowl - cereal-size or smaller - and put a inch cube of butter into it. If you use the spreadable butter, you won't have to wait half an hour whilst it softens.
Peel your garlic cloves - 2 per baguette gives you a pretty strong hit, and crush them into the bowl. If you don't have a crusher, chop the cloves very finely and go and buy a crusher for next time.
Sprinkle some mixed herbs onto the butter.

Now use a spoon to mix the butter, garlic and herbs together until you've got your garlic butter.

To cut the baguette, use a knife and put cuts an inch apart, diagonally, so that the loaf will break apart into pieces. Use a knife to push the garlic butter into the cuts. Spread any leftover butter on to the top of the baguette, place on the baking tray and fling in the oven for 8-10 minutes. If you're preparing this with the carbonara, make the garlic bread first and then stick it in the oven just after you pour the water away and put the pasta back in the saucepan.



Drink with: Pretty much anything. Strong red wines will kill the garlic flavour but may boost the pepperiness of the Carbonara.

Ease of cooking and preparation: 3/5 - Separating eggs, whiskingmixing, extra saucepan for the salami or bacon - it all adds up to a fair amount of work. It's not hard to do but it is time consuming.

Mess Factor: 2/5 - Getting dried-on cold eggy cheese sauce off a saucepan is a bastard. Leave the pan to soak in hot soapy water for 20 minutes before you try to clean it. Put it straight in to soak literally as soon as you've finished using it. You end up with at least 2 saucepans, one mixing bowl, cheese grater - a lot of work for a short meal.

Leftover value: 3/5 - Cold pasta isn't bad. The cheese and meat combo is pretty good. Not my first choice for leftovers but it makes a passable lunch. Cold garlic bread is pretty rough, in my opinion, so chuck it out for the birds if there's any left over, or better still finish it all off the night before.