The following is approximately the most basic recipe in the universe. If you can undercook your sausages while burning your toast without forgetting to put way too much milk in your tea, you can do this. Pasta alla carbonara is for 'special evenings' or 'business luncheons' or anything that could conceivably involve wine. This is a beer recipe. This is builder's carbonara.

You need, in order of importance: pasta, cheese, eggs, bacon, mushroom, butter, sausages, cream

Fry up some bacon, sausages and chopped mushrooms.
Cook that up til it's ready. Then chop the bacon into 1 inch chunks, and carve the sausages up as well. Wang the sausages back in the pan til the exposed bits are done. You can't fuck this up. It's not possible.

Grate cheese.
You need about 1 small handful. You can do more if needed later.

Cook some pasta.
If it's spaghetti you want about half a normal-size packet. Break the spaghetti in half and put it in a pan of cold water on a hob at full power. Stick a lid on the pan til the water boils. If it's shells or curly things or whatever then just fill the bowl to about as much as you think you want. It'll swell up giving you more than you want (don't use less though, if you leave yourself short you'll regret it). Put these pastas in boiling water. In either case keep cooking it until it's soft with a little bit of 'bite' left, but not crunchy and not gooey.

Get stuff ready
While the pasta's cooking, find a colander or sieve, or the pan lid, and all the other ingredients, and a decent mixing bowl and a plate.

pasta -> colander -> bowl
Once the pasta is done, we're moving quickly. Separate the water from the pasta. If you have no colander stick the lid on the pan, upturn over sink and crack the lid open til the water drains. Get the pasta into the bowl quickly. We need all the heat we can keep, so if you feel like being clever, drain the water into the bowl, then chuck to heat the bowl up.

egg(s) -> bowl
Put an egg in and mix it up. If you're doing a lot of this stuff make it two eggs.

cheese -> bowl  )
                )
butter -> bowl  )
                )-- mix like crazy
fry-up -> bowl  )
                )
cream  -> bowl  )

  • Throw away the plate and decide to eat from the bowl instead.
  • Use a spork if you like.
  • Punch anyone who mentions salad.
  • Have a heart attack.

As regards my crude stereotyping of poor maligned builders I might direct you to the famous words of the Dalai Llama, namely "Shut up, ass".

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