Spaghetti Carbonara With Snap Peas
I felt like some Carbonara last night and set about making it for the first time. I’ve had quite a few varieties of the dish (from the no cream versions in Italy to the more Americanized cream and green pea versions I see in the US) and liked them all. Lately I’ve also had a motivation to shell my own peas so leaning towards a green pea version I opted for the Americanized version.
After looking at a few recipes I ended up using this Food and Wine Spaghetti Carbonara With Green Peas Recipe. I was specifically looking for one that used a heavy cream and Parmesan along with green peas. This one seemed fairly easy.
Beth was slightly concerned about the raw eggs but I think she thought the egg cooking against the freshly cooked pasta cool.
I went to whole foods for my ingredients.
Once home I ran into what was my biggest issue - peas. I was all for shelling peas. There was good tennis on TV last night (federer was playing benneteau in an easy win and baghdatis was in the other court against chela) and I was waiting for Beth to get back from a meeting so I had the time. Green peas were not available so I got snap peas. I read some pea shelling instructions and went right into it. I needed 3/4 cup of peas for my recipe and after spending about an hour shelling I had gone through my two containers of peas and had about 1/4 cup. It could have been a pretty big let down but I saw it coming after I saw how slow I was filling my measuring cup. The peas were generally really small. I am not sure if it was the type of peas (snap as opposed to green), if these were just particularly lame peas, or if all pea shelling is this tedious.
I used an uncured smokehouse bacon instead of pancetta. It worked well for the recipe and plus Beth really doesn’t go for any cured meats so I was taking that into account as well.
Everything was really easy to do (except for the peas). I used the 1/4 cup of peas instead of adding more green peas that would have been from a bag in the freezer. The result was much more creamier and cheesier than the photo from the recipe. I really mixed the sauce thoroughly together in the pot.
Overall I would call this a success and certainly make it again. I need to figure out shelling peas - I think I probably just need to buy green peas as opposed to substituting snow or snap and I’ll find them larger. Or just go with frozen peas which is a) easier and b) available and pretty much just as good.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Sounds good but I would use the frozen peas myself!!!
December 18th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Sounds like a great recipe and I will have to try this out. If fresh green peas were available in my area at the time I made this I would definitely be using those but if not frozen green peas taste almost as good.