Rothman’s Meatless Pasta Carbonara

It’s been a while since I posted one of my recipes, so here’s one I literally just made tonight for the family.
This is a recipe that mimics pasta carbonara, which is basically spaghetti with a creamy sauce composed of eggs and cheese and some pasta water. Traditionally, people sautee and chop up guanciale (a form of bacon) as a porky addition – we substitute mushrooms and never miss it.
Fair warning: I make a lot at a time, you’ll want to divide the ingredients to your audience.

  • Spaghetti – 3lb
  • 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped
  • 2 lbs button mushrooms – (can never have too many mushrooms)
  • 16 eggs (actually 8 whole eggs + 8 yolks, save whites for an omelette or meringue, etc.)
  • black pepper (lots)
  • 2 cups of grated Parmesan (can use more, but generally not less).

Step 1: Saute a bunch of mushrooms. I usually lightly salt it during the saute process, but I’ll note I don’t use salt anywhere else in this recipe since the cheese itself actually provides plenty of salt.

Lots of water will come out of the mushrooms, this is good – they’ll slowly start to darken.

When most of the water has evaporated out of the mushrooms, add the chopped garlic and stir it around with the mushrooms. You’ll be turning the heat off the pan almost right away, because the garlic will burn pretty quickly – and that is not Good Eats™.

 
Step 2: Start cooking the pasta, and cook it a minute or two shy of al-dente. Basically, whatever the instructions are for cooking the pasta, subtract a minute or two. Once you mix this stuff up, the pasta will absorb some of the sauce and finish the cook, trust me – you don’t want mush.
Step 3: Either while the pasta is cooking or ahead of it, prepare your carbonara sauce.

Grated parmesan
Add pepper
Add eggs
Mix thoroughly, will create a thick sauce.
Step 4: Reserve 3-4 cups of the cooked pasta water (its murky due to the starch coming off the pasta during cooking).

Step 5: Mix the sauteed mushrooms and garlic into the sauce, it’ll slightly raise the heat (temper) the sauce, helping to prevent curdling of the eggs.
Step 6: Add half of the pasta and rapidly mix/toss with two large spoons, this will get the sauce nice warmed up and then add the rest of the pasta. Mix some more. You’ll probably notice the pasta looks a tiny bit dry, so I almost always add half the pasta water right away. Mix some more. The egg sauce will thicken and coat the noodles.
Ready to serve!

Pasta mixed in large bowl.

The remnants of the pasta in my bowl. Notice how creamy it is. Yum!
Enjoy!