What am I doing wrong - spaghetti carbonara

Doesnt need onion.

chop the bacon and cook til its brown along with a bit of garlic near the end so it doesnt burn

your pasta is bubbling away and nearly ready - make sure theres a big tbsp of salt in the water

in a jug, comine the yolks, s&p, cream, handful of parmesan and whisk

drain pasta but reserve an egg cup ful of the water. add bacon etc to pasta pot

chuck in your liquid mix and toss it about, adding the little bit of water from the pasta and making sure that the egg begins to thicken but doesnt scramble - you want it to be velvety

1 egg, 1 egg yolk, big load of parmesan and 2 tbs cream, beaten with a grating of nutmeg black pepper (you could also add salt here, I don't as this is for the kids)

Fry 1/2 an onion , finely chopped, with some lardon or smoked bacon until the onion is soft and beginning to brown and the bacon is cooked, a garlic clove in as well, I normally wait till the end so it doesn't burn.

Tip it all into hot spaghetti, stir, leave for a minute or 2. add more parmesan to serve.

I don't know if that's any different, I guess that would be a portion for 1 as it does 2 small children with healthy appetites. But it is really tasty.

but thats just pasta, bacon and cream, nice though i m sure it is ?

Thanks everyone. Will try the variations and see what happens. I was too lazy to drive into town and thought I could cook better than the good Italian restaurant....ha ha. WRONG!

Also, did someone mention a risotto carbonara? Does anyone have that recipe please.

The traditional way is sans cream. Much nicer imo.

I really really like the slightly lemony sausage carbonara in Jamie's Italy. Could eat that a lot.

I agree with Sophie- cream makes things too bland and you lose the flavour of the egg.

I tend to use a mixture of whole egg and egg yolk. it is trickier without the cream as it's a fine line between it being too raw and a bit grim and too cooked and scrambled eggish. I tend to take the pan off the heat completely and just let the heat of the pasta do it.

Also plenty of pepper.

I use creme fraiche, good handful of parmesan, 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks, plus lots of black pepper, all stirred into hot spaghetti with mushrooms and smoked bacon.

Nigella's carbonara from How To Eat is a winner every time:

200g spaghetti

Some pancetta, cubed (I cheat and use the readu cubed pancetta from Tesco - you get two little packs of 50g (I think), one of those.

About a glass of white wine

a knob of butter

One whole egg and one yolk

4 tbsp grated parmesan.

Cook your spaghetti till al dente, in salty water.

After the spag has been in 3 or 4 minutes (I'm assuming a cooking time of 10-11 minutes), chuck your pancetta in a frying pan and fry it - she suggests using olive oil but I don;t bother, they're plenty fatty enough - once it's cooked, add the wine and reduce until the wine is syrupy, then toss in the butter and stir it all about.

In a mixing bowl, stir your eggs and parmesan together.

Drain the spaghetti, then dump it into the frying pan and stir it around to coat the spag with the winey/buttery/pancetta juice and get the pancetta in amongst the spaghetti. You need the mixture nice and hot, so if your timings haven't tallied and the spag has cooled then put the heat on under the frying panto heat it up.

Next, take your frying pan and tip the contents into the egg/parmesan bowl. You need to move quickly here - use two forks to mix the whole lot together - the heat of the spaghetti mixture should lightly cook the egg. Make sure it's all coated nicely, serve onto two plates, enjoy....

It's one of my favourite meals, and I've always found other carbonara recipes far too heavy.