Carbonara and Orange Wineries

Carbonara takes its origins from Latium, Italy. Traditionally this recipe uses eggs alone to make a creamy sauce, it also uses bacon or pancetta. Like most of my recipes, my carbonara will also be bastardised, using speck, butter, cream and less cheese, it’s balanced really well and reminds me less of greasy pasta in pseudo Italian restaurants. I went away to Orange for the week, a country city located in the Central West region of NSW. Orange is everything you want in a getaway; good weather, food, wine and people. Orange holds a lot of history, amidst modern development and  still retains its architectural beauty.  I cooked my pasta for lunch, doubling as a thick-carbed lining for my stomach, before I spent the afternoon visiting wineries. 

While I was in Orange, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the owners of Word of Mouth Wines, a beautiful clean practice winery from Orange, located 1000m above sea level, growing beautiful grapes along the mountainside of Mt Canobolas. The winery currently stocks to some of Sydney’s finest restaurants like Long Grain. I am going to be working closer with Word of Mouth Wines, in months to come, in time for Orange Food Week (hopefully!) and as spring rolls along, to see a great yield of wine produced this year, which promises good things for the palette.

Ingredients

Serves four

500g  spaghetti

250g Speck

1 brown onion

2 cloves garlic

2 large field mushrooms

1 cup thickened cream

2 egg yolks

Pecorino cheese to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Cut the speck into bite sized pieces, it will be beautifully marbled with fat and cured meat. Finely dice onions and garlic. The larger field mushrooms can be sliced thinly too, longways. In a pan, brown garlic, onion and mushrooms in butter. Once cooked and browned, set aside and cook speck, browning evenly on all sides. Add mushrooms, garlic and onions and set pan aside. Boil water, adding salt and olive oil and cook spaghetti as directed. Separately mix egg yolks with cream and add to the pan once it has cooled completely. This will stop the egg yolks from curdling. The egg yolks enhance the creaminess of the sauce, acting almost as a thickening agent.  Lastly combine pasta into pant and mix through, adding cheese, salt and pepper to taste.