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Tom Cruise's Spaghetti Carbonara

A pasta dish with bacon, eggs, parmesan, garlic, onion, and olive oil.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tom Cruise's Spaghetti Carbonara

Timeabout a half-hour

Ingredients

Directions

Make the bacon base

  1. In a frying pan, combine 1/2 inch of olive oil, 2 cloves of minced garlic, one chopped onion and the Italian bacon cut into small squares. Let simmer for about a half-hour, being careful not to let the oil get to a boiling point.

Prepare the eggs and pasta

  1. In a bowl, beat 4 eggs with lots of salt and fresh ground pepper.

  2. Bring a pan of salted water to a boil.

  3. Cook both packages of spaghetti until al dente, drain and immediately add the egg mixture to the pasta.

  4. Stir the egg mixture until it is well mixed.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour in the mixture from the frying pan and stir.

  2. Finish with the parmesan cheese and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

405Calories
21 gProtein
30 gFat
14 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Garlic1 clove (3g)4

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Olive + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken into a creamy sauce as they gently cook in the warm pasta.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury, smoky flavour to the sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and body to the sauce.
Garlic
Adds aroma to the oil.
Onion
Adds sweetness and depth to the flavour base.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture to the hot pasta immediately. Eggs thicken when heated, so the hot pasta cooks them gently into a creamy sauce. If the pasta has cooled or the eggs sit too long, they can clump or scramble instead of coating the spaghetti smoothly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, garlic, onion, egg, parmesan cheese):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, garlic, onion, egg, parmesan cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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