Don't Sweat the Aubergine

Serve, with more cheese at the table if you like.
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WHY YOU DO IT
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    1 • Careful with the cream . A modest portion will add lubrication to the sauce; but if you use too much, you’ll stop the eggs scrambling. You may find that you prefer to leave it out, and to use a little cooking liquid if the carbonara looks too dry and clumpy.
    2 • Pancetta beats bacon . I’m all for making do with ingredients to hand, but I do think, snobbishly purist as it sounds, that pancetta, with its sweet taste, works a lot better in this dish than does streaky bacon. I buy pancetta in a chunk from my local deli: it’s tastier, and less watery, than pre-packaged lardons. You can use slices, cut up, as well. (You can also use cut-up slices of streaky bacon.) The pancetta will release its own fat, so use just enough oil to get the frying process started.
    3 • Garlic . Fry it for long enough to soften its flavour; but if you put it in the pan at the same time as you start cooking the pancetta, you might overcook and burn it. If you want to be a bit more subtle, just let it add garlic notes to the oil: lightly crush a whole clove with a heavy knife, put it in the pan with the pancetta, keep stirring it around, and remove and discard it when it’s brown.
    4 • Timing . The pancetta pan should be hot, but not so hot that it immediately turns whatever egg hits its surfaces into a large, dry lump. The egg should scramble as it does when you make the best scrambled eggs, becoming creamily curdled. The 10 minutes or so that it takes to cook the pasta should suit the pancetta, too, the heat underneath which you can turn off as soon as you add the drained spaghetti. Stir the pasta around a little; then add the eggs. I find that they usually scramble perfectly under these conditions. As soon as creamy bits of egg are showing on the strands of spaghetti, throw in the cheese, which, being cool, will help to arrest the cooking.
SAUSAGE SAUCE
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2
    4 sausages (see Variations, below)
    1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
    1 garlic clove, finely chopped
    400g tin tomatoes, drained; or 4 plump tomatoes, skinned and
    chopped ( see here )
    l42ml pot double cream
    Cut the sausages into discs; don’t be too concerned about cutting them cleanly. Warm the olive oil on a medium heat in a heavy saucepan, and add the sausages.
    You needn’t worry if they stick, or if bits of them break off, but you should stir them around if they are in danger of burning. 1 You just want bits of them to go brown, to add flavour to the sauce.
    Add the garlic, 2 and stir it around for a minute or so. Add the tomatoes, drained of the liquid in which they were sitting but not of all the liquid inside them, 3 and the cream. 4 As you stir this sauce, you’ll find that the encrusted bits on the bottom of the pan lift off. Simmer, very gently, until the sauce thickens. Check the seasoning – the sausages may already be quite salty.
    I like this sauce with conchiglie: bits of sausage nestle invitingly inside the shells. I usually have grated Parmesan cheese at the table.
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VARIATIONS
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    Chunky, sweet Italian sausages (bought from any Italian deli) are particularly delicious here. You could also use cumberlands, or fresh chorizos. Or any decent sausage you like. An alternative method is to skin them and crumble the meat, breaking it up further in the pan as it fries.
    You can also buy spicy Italian sausages . Or throw in a whizzed dried chilli or two just before you add the tomatoes.
    Leave out the garlic, if you like. When you’ve browned the sausage, add a chopped onion, and cook it until it softens. Then add the tomato, or just the cream; or leave them both out.
    Brown the sausage on a more gentle heat, for long enough to cook it thoroughly; then add the garlic, if you like, and the cream, with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard . The sauce will be ready in another minute or so, when the cream has thickened.
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WHY YOU DO IT
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    1 • Don’t worry about shapeliness . The soft sausage is hard to cut into neat discs, and will probably break up a bit as you stir it around the pan. The irregularity of the chunks, and the stray bits of sausage you find as you bite into a pasta shell, contribute to the appeal of the sauce.
    2 • When to add the garlic . I’ve seen similar recipes telling you to fry the garlic first. That would be fine if you could keep it away, once you put in the sausage, from the hottest parts of the pan, where it would burn. That’s not