Fry
Roasted Tomato and Leek Carbonara
- Serves 6
Author Notes
So we’ve all heard the stupid, Sunday comics joke about carbonara/alfredo: “it’s just like mac & cheese for adults!” Har har, roll laugh track, throw pie, etc.
And yeah, after you get past the “gee golly, isn’t that just a hoot and a holler” moment, you realize that they’re pretty much full of shit. Carbonara and Mac & Cheese are NOTHING alike, unless you consider having pasta and cheese enough to qualify for “alike”. In that case, a plate of lasagna is the same thing as that horrible gray pasta salad I had forced down my throat at last weekend’s bbq.
No, they’re way the hell different, and not just because of the ingredients, but because of the method. Mac & Cheese, for all of its creamy deliciousness, is pretty much just slapping cheese in a pot and adding cream and pasta. No fanfare, no moment of culinary creation, just stir and stir and plop: food. Really good food, but still. There’s no art to it.
Carbonara, on the other hand, has that moment. It’s the moment when you slowly pour the raw eggs and cheese into the pasta and stir, and watch everything go from a pile of gross to a piece of sublimity, of pasta-borne perfection, in seconds. Maybe I’m romanticizing it a bit, but hey, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Take something misunderstood and misappreciated and make love to it. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do here: make something that’s a hell of a lot more than just “grown-up Mac & Cheese”.
And then make love to it.
(Don’t actually put your genitals near hot pasta, I don’t need a lawsuit coming my way from you idiots) —Fresh Beats, Fresh Eats
Ingredients
-
1 pound
heirloom tomatoes
-
1
leek
-
4
strips bacon
-
12 ounces
pappardelle pasta
-
1/2
vidalia onion
-
3
eggs
-
2
cloves garlic
-
3/4 cup
grated parmesan
-
3/4 cup
heavy cream
-
1/2 cup
cooked peas
Directions
- First, preheat your oven to 400.
- Wash the tomatoes, then slice them in half. Make sure you pierce the tomatoes with the tip of your knife before you slice them, that’ll help make sure they don’t squirt all the good stuff all over your kitchen floor. And no, I’m not gonna gratify you by making an obvious joke from that. Pervert.
- Put the tomatoes on a baking sheet lined with parchment, cover them with olive oil and some salt and pepper, and roast for 40 minutes.
- While that’s in the oven, cook the pasta (you can save some of the water to thin the sauce, but…the whole point of carbonara is that thickness. I say don’t bother) Also, slice up your bacon into small pieces and fry on the stove at medium heat.
- Mince the onion and garlic.
- Cut the green part off the leek, cut it in half long-ways, and slice thin.
- Pour off the bacon grease, add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, and heat on medium-low. Add the veggies once it’s heated, and cook for about 5 minutes, then set aside.
- Get a medium bowl and whisk together the eggs, parmesan, cream, and some salt and pepper.
- Slowly pour half the eggy stuff in with the pasta, add the tomatoes, peas, bacon, and other veggies, then slowly pour in the rest. And make sure you stir the entire time. This is the magic moment, people. Light some candles or something. Make it special.
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