Pasta Carbonara a la Brian

c.f., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonara

Written down from memory; you'll need to experiment and adapt the
recipe for your taste and style.  I tend to buy bulk at Costco, so
the garlic, feta, and ham come from the Costco big-tub-o-preminced garlic,
the Costco big-slab-o-feta, and the Costco bag-o-1/4"-slabs-o-ham.

Ingredients (makes one serving; scale as needed):

One bowl penne pasta

One egg @ room temperature is best
1/4 lb ham (less?), finely chopped
Handful of fresh (or 1-2 tsp dried) basil
Up to a tsp of pepper (to taste)
1-2 Tbs. minced garlic
1/4 stick (less?) butter
2-4 Tbs. feta cheese
N.B.: No olive oil, no salt (ham and feta have plenty of salt!)

Pasta:
In a smallish sauce pan, first start the water boiling for the pasta.  
The carbonara will be finished very quickly and the whole thing turns on 
getting the eggs cooked from (mostly) the heat of the pasta.  The pasta has 
to be done to bring this to completion!  So you need to time the pasta to
be ready just before the carbonara is done  A smallish sauce pan for the
pasta works best for combining the pasta and carbonara.

Carbonara:
In a small frying pan, place the ham, finely chopped.  That's ham on a
bare pan, just do it.  When the ham is just starting to look browned, toss 
in the garlic to bring both to brown, i.e., carmelized.

While the ham is cooking, assemble the ingredients.  
(a) Crumble/slice the feta and have it ready to go with the butter - these two 
ingredients will work to degaze the pan.  I cut the feta and butter into 
smaller chunks so they melt faster.
(b) Pepper together with basil.
(c) In a small bowl, crack and whisk up the egg.

When the ham and garlic are browned, throw in the butter and feta cheese.
Both will melt and deglaze the pan; so work the fluid to bring the browned
bits off the pan.  I'll add 2-4 Tbs. of the pasta water at this point to
bring the sauce along.  This is a dry sauce, however, almost a paste.

Add the pepper and basil to the sauce.  We're basically done - you might
give it 1-2 min. to get the spices going in the sauce.

Drain the pasta; keep it in the same pan.  Quickly mix in the carbonara.
Then quickly mix in the egg.  This is all off of any heat.  Theoretically,
the heat of the pasta and carbonara will cook the egg; me, I am too chicken
and I will put the pan on very low heat for just a minute to encourage the 
egg to fully cook; stir frequently.

Place in a bowl; consume directly.  
Tip:  If you drain the pasta into the bowl the bowl will be preheated.

B.D.D. 1/5/09