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Fettuccine alla Papalina
The pope's carbonara: prosciutto instead of guanciale, butter, peas and parmesan, never cream...
Ingredients
400 g fresh fettuccine
200 g prosciutto cotto, in thin strips
80 g butter
200 g peas, fresh or frozen
1 small onion, finely diced
4 egg yolks
1 whole egg
100 g parmesan, grated
salt and black pepper, to taste
Method
Beat the yolks and the whole egg with most of the parmesan and plenty of black pepper in a bowl big enough to hold the pasta later. Set it aside at room temperature.
Melt the butter in a wide pan and soften the onion in it gently for 8 minutes without colouring it.
Add the peas and a splash of water and cook them for 5 minutes until tender.
Stir in the prosciutto for one minute only. It is already cooked; frying it hard makes it dry and tough, which is the opposite of what this dish is for.
Cook the fettuccine in well-salted water, and lift out a mugful of the water before you drain it.
Loosen the egg mixture with two or three tablespoons of the hot pasta water, beating as you pour. This warms the eggs gently and is what stops them scrambling in the next step.
Take the pan off the heat and let it stop sizzling. Then tip in the drained pasta, pour the egg mixture over and toss hard and continuously.
Keep it off the heat. The residual warmth of the pan and the pasta is enough to thicken the egg into a glossy sauce; put it back on the flame and you have fettuccine with scrambled egg.
Loosen with more pasta water if it tightens, and serve at once with the rest of the parmesan and more pepper.
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