Categories
GUEST EDITOR

From The Desk Of The Yawpers: American Carbonara

Working-class rock—and that’s the bell the Yawpers ring again and again on American Man (Bloodshot)—has gone through a lot of permutations through the decades. This music is all over the map, stylistically; “Doing It Right” skews to amped-up speedway boogie, while the title cut and “Beale Street” bring more country trappings, though it’s a revved up country that would be totally alien to CMT. And there are left-field moments like “Kiss It” that go full-on dirty blooze hard rock. For all that variety, the music works well on its own merits. The Yawpers—singer/guitarist Nate Cook, guitarist Jesse Parmet and drummer Noah Shomberg—will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Carbonara

Cook: Note, this recipe borrows heavily from some pastor who knows his shit when it comes to food. If you want a less gregarious, more pure version of this recipe, I’d suggest checking out Cooking With Ryan over at the Pioneer Woman.

Aside from playing shitty rock ‘n’ roll, I like getting fat as fuck. The only way to that as a card-carrying member of the lower caste is to spend a bunch of time cooking my own meals. Vegans and health junkies will find no refuge in these lines. Here’s one of my preferred recipes:

As a self-identifying half-Italian, which doesn’t mean much anymore in this increasingly mutt-filled world, I spend a lot of time trying to catch a bit of the boot on my palate. So we’re going to do a bastardized, by virtue, version of an Italian classic.

Shit you’ll need to get:
1 pound linguine
3 tbsp ground black pepper
1 1/4 cups white wine (cheap and pungent is better for our purposes; no need for subtlety or money here)
1 tbsp cooking sherry
3/4 cups of chicken stock (heavy on the sodium)
5 tbsp of Irish butter
2 cups aged reggiano
1.5 pounds pork belly, cut into 1-inch cubes (seriously, don’t be a dick and use bacon. Pork belly is the jam here)
4 eggs
1 cup of parsley, chopped
10 garlic cloves (dice that shit)

Now, for all you cast-iron junkies out there like me, you’re going to need to dust off your stainless steel for this one, ‘cause we’re going to be deglazing the pan. So grab your finest steel saucepan, and let’s get started.

Put a large pot of salt water on high. While waiting for that to boil, put your sauce pan on the stove over medium-high heat. Let the pan warm up for a minute. Now, add you cubed pork belly. Immediately drizzle your cooking sherry over the pork, and mix in so the meat is covered evenly. Make sure all sides are browned, and have nice crust to them.

Remove the pork belly with a slotted spoon, leaving the renderings in the pan. Add your diced onion.

After the onion has cooked for a minute or so, toss in your garlic. Be careful not to let the garlic burn.

Once the onion and garlic has cooked, remove with a slotted spot. Remove renderings to a bowl, and set to the side.

At this point, your water should be at a hard boil. Put in your linguine, and let boil for 11 minutes (at least if you’re up here in the Rockies)

Now it’s time to blast your sauce pan with some heat. Turn up to high, and wait until the pan starts to smoke. Toss in your wine, and scrape the bejeezus out of the bottom of the pan, make sure to get all let the brown stuck to the bottom off.

Add back in your renderings and stock, and reduce heat to medium low.

Now add back in the pork, garlic and onion.

Add your eggs, parsley, black pepper and reggiano, and mix vigorously until it turns into something of a paste.

Once your pasta is done cooking, drain it, and add it to the egg and parsley mix.

Toss on your meat and garlic mix.

Add your butter.

Using tongs, mix that thing until kingdom come. The heat from the pasta and your sauce should cause the eggs to thicken. Make sure to mix for a solid minute or two.

Put that on a double-stacked paper plate, and you’re ready to eat like a depressed 29-year old alcoholic: in style.

Feeds two of me