I was inspired to make this from Patricia’s Spaghetti with Garlic and Spinach post. Queen of substitutions that I am, I loosely followed the recipe that she found on delicious. magazine [A very good magazine, by the way, but I digress.] and made my own version with pancetta and linguine. Here’s the visual step-by-step guide:

I just fried 3 thinly sliced pancetta with a drizzle of olive oil till it’s almost crispy, added chopped garlic and cooked it for a minute or two until the garlic turns golden brown. Took out the pancetta, and splash and fizzle goes the dash of wine (ok, it was probably 1/8 cup) and reduced it to half. Tossed in the linguine, spinach and pancetta. Ground some fresh pepper and sprinkled salt. Tossed. Took out of the heat and served with grated parmesan cheese on top. Now this is where I followed the recipe: I served/ate it with lots of parmesan cheese. So simple. So delicious. It couldn’t get any easier than that.

We’ve always made Spaghetti alla Carbonara the ‘with cream‘ way thinking that we were doing it right (i.e. the authentic way), but we were so wrong as you will see in the authentic recipe below. Well, it really doesn’t matter because whenever we cook Giada de Laurentiis’s Chicken Carbonara, it was well-received. And that’s important. No matter how gourmet your food is, if none of your guests like it — what’s the point, right? However, it still is good to experience the real thing.

Early last week I found a link from Tastespotting pointing to the Virtual Group of Italian Chef‘s page about the International Day of Italian Cuisines: January 17. [It's also my parents' wedding anniversary...not that we have the slightest of Italian lineage, but I just wanted to give a shout out to my folks who read this. Happyversary! :-)] On the GVCI site, this was posted:

For one day, everyone who makes, promotes or simply loves Italian food outside of Italy is invited to carry out a small activity to celebrate authenticity and quality in Italian cuisine.

This unprecedented celebration is led by over 130 Italian chefs and restaurateurs in 35 countries. They belong to itchefs-gvci, (Virtual Group of Italian Chefs) and will cook Pasta alla Carbonara according to the original, authentic recipe. This simple dish, a pillar of Italian gastronomy, is in fact the symbol of counterfeit Italian cuisine in the world at large. The International Day of Italian Cuisines, under the aegis of itchefs-gvci, is born of a desire to redress this imbalance.

Of course, being the newly fashioned Me-Too person that I am, I told Dan we’ll join in.

I doubled the serving-for-one recipe for our dinner and the pasta we ended up with was very tasty and creamy. I did not miss the cream, but Dan did. I think I put way too much cheese because it tasted a bit sharp. This recipe made me cry out load for a kitchen digital scale, because the ingredient measurements were in grams. I had to make estimates throughout the recipe.  That’s ok…you keep learning in the kitchen.

Here is the recipe posted on the itchefs-gvci.com site that I followed for this dish. We used pancetta because we couldn’t find guanciale, two eggs for the doubled recipe, and Parmigiano Reggiano for the cheese.

It’s really easy to make –

[Edited 20 May 2010 - I received a note from the Managing Editor of Greatfood.ie to remove their recipe. We shared the recipe here in celebration the so-called International Day of Italian Cuisines, but we cannot do so anymore--sorry folks! Kindly point your browser to your choice of search engine to look for the recipe. Thanks.]