Gadget poaches egg for pasta dish in a jiffy

LEAH ESKIN

Sous vide, in the grip of an online translator, comes out “under empty.” Who craves a cooking contraption that promises less than zero?

Not me. I snubbed sous vide. Vacuum-sealing a steak and letting it wallow in warm water sounded less than good. Plus, the prospect of another rotund appliance made my shelves ache. Let some fancy restaurant chef invest in an immersion circulator. Too futuristic for me.

Then I read an update. In the years I’d been ignoring sous vide, the hardware had shrunk. Once a $500 bathtub, sous vide has been reformatted as a $200 (or less) stick. Prop it in a pot of water. Drop the ingredients in a zip-close bag and (using a clever underwater trick) squeeze out the air. Fits in a drawer, calls for do-it-yourself ingenuity? Count me in.

Susie and I made lamb chops that glowed mediumrare, end to end. We calibrated the creaminess of creme brulee. We poached eggs right in the shell. Sous vide, I learned, offers old-school low-and-slow cooking, with precision.

Plus, it’s a time machine. Once the sealed-and-poached dish reaches temperature, it can usually hold — without overcooking — for hours. In other words, sous vide pinpoints the crux of dinnerparty anxiety and cranks it down below zero. That’s my kind of future.

Modern Pasta Carbonara

1 egg

½ pound spaghetti or

fettuccine

1 tablespoon olive oil 2 cloves garlic, smashed 1 slice (¼-inch thick) pancetta, cubed, about 1½ ounces

2 tablespoons dry white wine ¼ cup freshly grated

parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons freshly grated

Romano cheese 1 tablespoon finely chopped

parsley

Ground black pepper

Using a sous vide device, heat a pot of water to 147

Modern Pasta Carbonara

degrees. Use a slotted spoon to lower in the egg (in its shell). Cook 1 hour.

Cook pasta the oldfashioned way — in a big pot of salted water — until tender but firm. Drain.

While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Drop in garlic; toast golden brown. Scoop out garlic and discard. Add the pancetta to the hot pan, and sizzle until crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Add wine; sizzle, 1 minute.

Heap cooked pasta in a serving bowl. Toss with pancetta mixture. Toss with both types of cheese and parsley.

At the last moment, crack the poached egg onto the pasta. Dramatic, right? Toss until egg has melded with pasta and sauce. Grind on some pepper. Dig in.

Makes 2 servings.