Saturday 5 May 2012

The ancient secret of Carborama

My girlfriend celebrated her birthday today. The downside for me, of course, was that I had to promise not to troll her all day. I succeeded mostly in this task (there were a couple of slip-ups, but I think I did pretty well overall).

I promised her that it was her day, and that she could have anything she wanted (I make a point of doing this on this day of all days, so I can get away with murder for the other 364.25 days a year). She asked me if I could cook her my not-but-should-be famous dish, The Carborama.


Real food doesn't look perfect and plastic like McDonalds advertising.


The Carborama started out as a bastardised version of my mother's Carbonara pasta, that has been slowly modified over time. The name of the dish was coined by kungfucolin (EDIT - On reflection, it might have been my mate SirFunkyMonkey that actually originally coined this term, my bad), meaning that it's got a hell of a lot of carbohydrates. A couple variants have been failures, however I believe I have now perfected the recipe. It was once a staple of kungfucolin and my diet when we lived together a few years back; It became a tradition that every fortnight, we'd do a big food shop at our local supermarket and on the day after, I'd whip up a batch of Carborama and we'd watch The Sopranos.

You, internet, will benefit from my girlfriend's delicious request because it has spawned the idea that today, I will bequeath to you the secret of...

The Carborama


Difficulty:
Not very
Feeds: If this was in a cookbook, it'd say it feeds six.
This is not a cookbook, however, so I'll say it'll pop the top button of the jeans of three people.

Ingredients:

  • 1 crapton of bacon, obviously (it's a measurement, look it up)
  • 1 onion
  • Parmesan cheese
  • 600 mLs of Full Cream (None of that whimpy low fat stuff)
  • 1 egg
  • Half a big packet of pasta (Shells work the best if you can get them, but any old pasta will do)
  • 1 Chorizo - cured sausage
  • Chilli flakes (can't be arsed with the real stuff myself, but feel free to use fresh chillies if you like)
  • Salt
  • Pepper

The correct order and manipulation of ingredients:
  1. Chop up the onion. Now, there are many ways to do this, and they all seem to make your eyes feel burn like hell. Employ whichever method you're most comfortable with, however if you are in possession of a blender or food processor use the mofo. 
  2. Remove any fat from the bacon (I don't mind a bit of fat on my bacon when frying for post-drinking breakfast, but in Carborama is should be lean 'cause it's decadent enough)
  3. Chop up the crapton of bacon. If you require explicit guidance on how to execute this task, I'm afraid this recipe may not be for you. 
  4. Chop up the chorizo. I prefer to cut it in down the middle, and then in approximately centimetre sections. For Americans: Adopt the bloody Metric system already, you heathens! Er, I mean about a third of an inch.
  5. Heat up a frying pan with some Olive Oil, and chuck those into the pan with some chilli flakes. Cook until the onion, bacon and chorizo has browned off.
  6. Add 600mLs of Full Cream into the frypan (or onto the floor, if you're an idiot). Keep it moving every minute or so
  7. Boil the kettle and grab a saucepan for the pasta. Pour the boiling water into the pot, add salt and wait until it's properly boiling before adding the pasta.
  8. Get a small vessel (I use a drinking glass or a measuring cup), crack and add the egg.
    Pro-tip: To check if the egg has gone bad before cracking it, drop it into a glass of water. If it floats, it's off. Discard and repeat until one sinks. Use that one. Obviously.
  9. Add salt, pepper and a pinch of parmesan. Whisk lightly with a fork until it's mixed through.
  10. Wait until pasta is ready. During this time, you could write a haiku or make a prank call. I personally prefer to sit on the couch and scratch my balls.
  11. Return to stove top and remove pasta from heat. Using a strainer, or your amazing powers of deduction, remove the water from the pasta and return it to the saucepan. Keep the saucepan off the heat at this point.
  12. Pour the strange looking egg-pepper-salt-cheese concoction into the pasta and quickly stir it through while the pasta is still hot. The heat of the pasta alone will be enough to cook the egg through.
  13. Assuming the sauce we created is now a light brown colour, pour it into the pasta saucepan and mix it all the way through. The sauce mixture should be quite viscous at this point; If it's still a thin liquid, cook it until it thickens up.
You, my friend, are ready to get your mung on. Chuck it in a couple of bowls, add some parmesan. Add forks to taste and you got yourself a foodstuff that'll feel more filling than it's weight in bread. Seriously, it's deceptively heavy so pace yourself... it's going to be a hell of a ride.

Who's game enough to take on The Carborama? Think you've got the stones?

Try it out, report back. Tell me what you think.

6 comments:

  1. I had a minor coronary simply by reading the ingredients ... it sounds delicious though -- oh bacon, how I miss you.

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  2. It was indeed delicious!

    And, even though he kept to his word and only trolled me 4 times yesterday - I have been trolled ruthlessly since midnight! :)

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    Replies
    1. Is that what you youngsters call it now?

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    2. OMG! I totally choked on my cordial just now ;)

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    3. Hahaha, extreme lulz happening over here right now.

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