This is a recipe I've learned from a good American friend who has spent some time in Italy and has never hesitated to adopt and adapt Italian recipes for her own family. I quite like this dish and often make it in summer.

Spaghetti Carbonara.

A legend says that the recipe was made up during WWII. When American soldiers in Italy were hungry, they'd give whatever they had - some bacon and an onion and a few eggs - to Italian women, who made a dish for them, mixing the ingredients with traditional Italian foods. However, there're plenty of very different legends about this dish, which may, or may not be true. Anyway, to make spaghetti carbonara Italian-American style, you'll need:

Ingredients:

two eggs

a large onion

a few rashers of bacon (I use 4 or 5)

about 80 grams of parmesan or any other hard cheese

half a glass of milk

half a glass of dry white table wine (if there's no wine, just use 1/2 glass of milk instead)

some chopped parsley

200-300 g. spaghetti

some salt to taste

Cooking method:

Chop the onion and the bacon. Stir-fry in a frying pan until slightly golden and soft, take off the fire.

Boil the spaghetti for 5-7 minutes. Spaghetti should be "al dente" - a bit hard.

Break the eggs into a bowl, add a pinch of salt (don't forget that the bacon is already salty), pour in the milk and the wine and beat with a fork to mix well. Grate the cheese. Add the cheese and the parsley, mix again.

Sieve the spaghetti and put them into the frying pan together with the onion and the bacon. Put the frying pan back on fire, stir, then pour the cheese-eggs-wine-milk-parsley mixture on top, stir it in and turn the fire off.

You will get a thick sauce, with a slightly meaty smell and it'll taste fresh and a bit cheesy. The wine adds a slighlty sour aftertaste. If you've used only milk, it won't taste sour at all. A great dish for a hot summer evening, to be served with a glass of cold dry white wine. And it takes about 20 minutes to cook.