Thought for the Day

I really must stop buying ready-made Spaghetti Carbonara from shops and actually attempt to make my own with some halfway decent bacon.

For whatever reason, whichever the shop, whatever the 'high quality' subline, the one common factor in any and all ready-made Carbonara recipe is that the bacon chunks tend toward 70% fat, 30% meat... and the problem with a Carbonara is that the bacon never cooks to the point where the fat is crispy, and thereby palatable to me.

I'm sure there are many people out there who don't mind bacon fat... I just find it too chewy.. and chewy isn't good. It's entirely the wrong texture for something like a Spaghetti Carbonara.

Being entirely honest, I'm sure I've been to restaurants who serve Spaghetti Carbonara with bacon that's not much better... but at least it tends to be cooked a little more thoroughly than any of these ready-meal varieties.

But, let's face it, it's just spaghetti, bacon chunks, and a mild cheese sauce (or, occasionally a Béchamel sauce with cheese). I should be able to make one myself. Make the sauce, grab some thick-sliced bacon, probably cook it briefly on its own, do the spaghetti, add the bacon, add the sauce, stir it together...

How hard could it be?