Smoked Salmon Carbonara
I know it's not real carbonara!
Hi, friends. Here we are, emerging from eclipse-land, into spring. (Happy Eid to all who celebrate!) I didn’t find the eclipse quite as transporting as others did. I was too busy worrying about accidentally looking into the sun and blinding myself, and spent the whole time telling Amol not to look into the sun. (He wasn’t.) I’m fun.
Shout-out to my fellow neurotics who find the potential dangers hidden in nice things and don’t hesitate to ruin it for everyone else. And right this way for an excellent spring pasta…
What’s For Dinner?
You’re right, this is not a traditional Italian carbonara, which is made only with pasta, a cured pork product (usually guanciale), cheese, eggs, salt and pepper.
But the real magic of carbonara (and other traditional Roman pastas like cacio e pepe and alla gricia) is in the glossy, rich, barely-there, clingy sauce, made with nothing more than very gently cooked egg yolks, starchy pasta cooking water, and grated sharp cheese (usually Pecorino Romano).
This venerable method feels a bit like a miracle: Just a few ingredients emulsify to make a luscious but delicate pasta, greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes people make this egg-emulsified-sauce method sound more difficult than it is, but it’s really not; just don’t let the sauce boil, which will scramble the eggs.
It would be more accurate to call this a carbonara-inspired smoked salmon and pea pasta, but that’s not very catchy. Whatever you call it, it is fast, easy and absolutely perfect for spring.
Did Mira eat this? Yes! Though she said she would have preferred it with regular salmon instead of smoked. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Smoked Salmon and Pea Carbonara
Serves 4
Salt
1 pound rigatoni or other similarly shaped pasta
1 cup (3.5 ounces) finely grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
2 large eggs and 4 large egg yolks
1 (10-ounce) bag frozen peas
8 ounces smoked salmon, roughly cut into bite-sized pieces
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Freshly ground black pepper
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions.
Meanwhile, in a large liquid measuring cup or a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the cheese, eggs and egg yolks to make a uniformly yellow mixture that’s slightly foamy on top.
Just before the pasta is done, ladle out 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta.
While whisking constantly, slowly add 3/4 cup of the hot pasta water into the egg-cheese mixture.
Put the pasta pot back on the stove and add the pasta, the egg-cheese mixture and the peas over medium heat. Stir constantly until the peas are heated through and the sauce has noticeably thickened and become glossy, coating the pasta, 4 to 5 minutes. Don’t let the sauce boil, but don’t be afraid to let it get steamy and hot, that’s when it will thicken. Turn off the heat and fold in the smoked salmon. Season with the lemon juice and lots of black pepper. Taste and add salt if you like. If you’d prefer a looser-textured sauce, stir in a bit more pasta water. Serve immediately, with more cheese for topping.
Opinion Soup
I recently ran an op-ed writing class for nurses at a conference in LA. Teaching is not really a thing I do, or think of myself as being qualified to do—still trying to shake that totally clichéd imposter syndrome, lo these many years! But I did it, because I try to force myself to do things I don’t think I can do, and the experience was so interesting.
For one thing, it reminded me that sometimes people don’t really need teaching so much as permission and time (or like… gentle forcing) to write. Because they all already knew what they needed to write. Also, I kind of obligated them to share (or, I went around the circle and made them opt out if they didn’t want to read what they wrote, instead of asking for volunteers), because I think that often the act of sharing writing is part of the writing itself. The stories need a reader or a listener to attain their full meaning. And sharing your writing gets easier the more you do it, and, maybe, harder the less you do it. Being in that circle reminded me of the power of stories to get right to the heart of things, as these very matter-of-fact nurses were often brought to tears by the narratives that emerged from themselves, and from others.
On a practical note, if you’re thinking of pitching an op-ed, the The Op-Ed Project is an excellent resource. It’s helpful for everyone, really, including myself, but especially for those who are not used to navigating the media world.
Odds and Ends
-Flaming Hydra is absolutely worth a subscription, and feels weird, smart and almost taped-together like the Old Fun Internet used to be. (Like, for instance, a poem about rutabagas.) This piece, How to Be Productive During a Genocide, was a scalding but necessary read.
-As a nervous flyer (duh), sometimes all I can say is, honestly, what the fuck? Regulations that are actually enforced, I ❤️ them.