This creamy, cheesy sauce dotted with pancetta makes a delicious and easy mid-week meal.
Ingredients
- 100g pancetta
- 50g pecorino cheese
- 50g parmesan cheese
- 3 eggs
- 350g spaghetti (weight when dry)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 50g unsalted butter
Method
- Put a large saucepan of water on to boil
- Remove any rind from the pancetta, then finely chop.
- Finely grate both the cheeses into a bowl and mix together
- Beat the eggs in a bowl, and season. Set everything to one side.
- Add 1tsp of salt to the boiling water, then pop the spaghetti in. Let everything come back to a boil then cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
- Whilst the pasta is cooking, squash the two garlic cloves with the flat part of a knife. You don’t need to cut the cloves, just bruise them.
- Grab a frying pan and drop the butter in. Once it has melted, throw in the garlic and pancetta and fry together over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Now remove the garlic from the pan.
- Keep the pancetta on a low heat. When the pasta is ready, drain it (keeping some of the pasta’s cooking water to one side) and add to the frying pan.
- Mix the eggs with the majority of the cheese (holding some back for sprinkling over later). Take the pan off the heat and quickly pour the eggs and cheese in, lifting the spaghetti using tongs so that it easily mixes and the sauce becomes thick, but doesn’t scramble as everything is coated.
- Add a few tablespoons of the pasta’s cooking water to help form a sauce, and season with a little salt.
- Serve immediately with the remaining cheese and some fresh black pepper.
Lead image: Lilechka75 via Getty images.
