Even now, with no plate of this stuff in front of me, I can almost taste it. By that I mean is that there is an empty space which only the taste of this dish fits into. It takes me back to when I was a small child, when my mother would make this after a long day. It’s very quick. It is a serendipitous combination, much greater than the sum of its parts. Once cooked like this, covered with cooked egg and Romano cheese, the linguine have a unique sort of nubbly texture. And the smell of smoked bacon and the bacon’s crisp crunch between the teeth, plus the unctuous feeling on your lips that comes from eating linguine full of the fat rendered from eight slices of crisp bacon. And then, after all these unhealthy ingredients have passed by, there is still one final float coming at the end of this parade which is sort of like Santa Claus at Macy’s Thanksgiving – slices of rich, creamery butter melting on top! Talk about adding an insult to the injury this dish does to our modern sensibilities about food, but damn, this is good.
Linguine in Egg Sauce
1 lb. Linguine
8 slices bacon, diced
3 eggs at room temperature, slightly beaten
1 cup grated Romano cheese
¼ tsp. Pepper
4 tbsp. Butter
Cook linguine in a large pot of boiling, salted water. In small skillet, cook bacon over low heat until crisp. Drain cooked linguine and return to the pot. Add eggs, cheese, pepper, hot bacon and bacon fat and mix well. If after mixing there is still uncooked egg in the pot, cook mixture over very low flame for a minute or two, stirring constantly.
Place in hot serving dish and top with slices of butter.
Last night I ate a profiterole and I was awake all night waiting for a fatal heart attack. – character Niles Crane from “Frasier”
Recipes out of the Blond Box 