Spaghetti Carbonara

I've been making spaghetti carbonara for years, but have always forgotten to write down the recipe, so I decided to change that today.

Ingredients

• 350g dried spaghetti
• 125g pancetta cubes
• 2 tbsp (40g) butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 3 large eggs
• 100g grated parmesan cheese (or grana padana) and some more to garnish

Method

1. Heat a large pan of water on the stove to bring it to the boil.
2. Put the dried spaghetti into the water and reduce the heat to a simmer.
3. Cook the pasta for 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a large deep frying pan, cook the pancetta and garlic with a few tbsp of water over a medium heat.
5. Give the pancetta a good stir every few minutes, and after about 8 minutes it should be starting to crisp up, having rendered out the fat.
6. Remove the garlic cloves and discard (as they've now flavoured the pan).
7. Add the butter to the pancetta pan and reduce the heat to low.
8. Mix the eggs and cheese together in a separate jug.
9. By now the pasta should have finished cooking, so pull it out of the pan with a lon fork or spaghetti spoon and dump straight into the pancetta pan. You want it to bring a bit of water with it.
10. Mix the pasta and pancetta well before turning the heat off and adding the egg and cheese mixture.
11. Stir continously until the egg starts to thicken a bit - if it starts looking a bit dry add a ladel or two of water from the pasta pan and mix well (I usually have to add a couple).
12. Serve immediately in a bowl, garnished with some more cheese.

Serves 4.