A Carbonara Fit For Spring

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

I get a little excited about spring vegetables. Happens every year. The first artichokes, asparagus, and peas (not to mention ramps, fiddlehead ferns, spring onions) appear and I go overboard with spring green excitement. Next thing you know, I have a refrigerator full of asparagus and the rest of its little green friends and I’m racking my brain trying to think of new ways to cook them up.

A gave the asparagus the full treatment this week. I tossed tips into stir-fries, made salad of the blanched spears, and even whipped up a homemade pesto to coat a plate of shrimp and asparagus. But still I had more.

Then I got to thinking about eggs. Every restaurant menu I’ve looked at in the past few weeks seems to have a variation on the salad of dressed asparagus spears topped with a farm fresh poached egg. I can understand why. When the fork pierces the gently resting egg, the yolk leaks out coating the asparagus with a luxurious, uncomplicated sauce.

The problem is, as much as I love that dish, it really is not much more than a salad, great for lunch but not quite satisfying for dinner. If I could just find a way to work the combination of eggs and asparagus into a heartier meal, it would be the perfect springtime supper.

Then it hit me: carbonara. Another sauce made with a base of eggs, this one designed to coat pasta, would be the ideal complement to lightly cooked asparagus spears.

The carbonara as most people know it today, heavy with cream, only mildly resembles the original. Though the recipe is not old (it is not known to have existed before World War II), the flavor appeal of the original version is classic. Cured pork jowl, guanciale, is cooked to render the fat and then tossed with spaghetti. Meanwhile, eggs are whipped with a generous portion of grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan and a small hill of freshly ground pepper. The pasta and pork are tossed with the eggs just till the yolks start to thicken and the dish is done.

For my pasta, I decided to lighten up the dish just a bit, using less fatty pancetta in place of the pig jowl. I sautéed the diced pancetta in just a little olive oil to get the dish going. Meanwhile, I blanched sliced asparagus and cooked fresh linguine in boiling water.

For the sauce, two large eggs from my friend’s farm (if you don’t have friends who raise chickens, use the freshest eggs you can find), a heaping handful of grated Parmigano Reggiano, and a lot of black pepper got whisked together in a glass bowl over the still simmering blanching water. The pasta and asparagus went in the pan with the pancetta then it all went into the bowl over the simmering water. Sixty seconds of tossing later, the eggs thickened enough to coat the pasta and the asparagus.

Just when I thought there was no other way to prepare asparagus, eggs to the rescue. Though not quite as simple as placing an egg on full asparagus spears, the little bit of extra work and attention paid off with a rich, satisfying plate studded with the goodness of spring’s vegetable bounty.

Serves/Makes: 2

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 ounces pancetta
• 8 medium thick asparagus spears
• salt
• 1/2 pound linguine or spaghetti pasta
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 ounce grated parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper