Spaghetti alla Carbonara

A quick and easy but still fairly impressive pasta dish.  This recipe is written for small individual portions and can be easily scaled up.

For each person:
1-2 oz guanciale, pancetta, or good bacon, chopped into medium cubes
generous 1/4 C freshly grated parmesan
1 clove garlic, minced
1 egg, separated
3-4 oz dry spaghetti
generous amount of freshly ground pepper
2 t extra virgin olive oil

Heat the oil and the guanciale over medium heat to render the fat and crisp the meat (without getting
it too crunchy); don't drain the fat.  Add the garlic right before you finish cooking the guanciale and cook slightly to flavor the fat and slightly cook the garlic.

Cook the spaghetti until al dente in boiling salted water; the goal here is to finish the pasta just as the guanciale is ready, but err on the side of the guanciale being done first.  You can always kill the heat then turn it back on when the pasta is ready. 

Drain the pasta (reserving a generous 1 T of the cooking liquid per person) and add it to guanciale with the pasta water.  Stir it for a minute or so to combine, then kill the heat.  Add the cheese and the egg whites and quickly toss so that the hot pasta cooks the whites without scrambling them into chunks.

Liberally season with pepper, then remove to a serving plate, making a well in the center that you place the egg yolk in.  Top with a little additional grated parmesan.

Ideally you serve this while still quite warm and the diner cuts in to the yolk and stirs to distribute the creamy egg among the pasta right before eating.