Carbonara
Carbonara is a simple dish. The quality of your ingredients make or break it.
Ingredients
- Spaghetti or linguine: 125 g | 4 1/3 oz pp.
- Egg: 1.
- Egg yolk: 1 pp.
- Parmigiano-Reggiano (grated): 30 g | 1 oz pp.
- Pecorino Romano (grated): 30 g | 1 oz pp.
- Guanciale (cleaned and cubed): 75 g | 2 oz pp.
Directions
- Combine the cheese, egg and egg yolks in a bowl, together with a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper and optionally a dash of whole milk.
- Fill a pot with just enough water to be able to cook the spaghetti without it sticking together or burning. Use less salt than you would normally. The aim is starchy water.
- Depending on the cooking time of your pasta, you can add it now (8+ minutes and you should be fine). Cook the pasta 1 minute less than advised.
- Fry the guanciale in a dry pan on low to medium heat until the sides are crisp but the insides are chewy. Leave the resulting fat in the pan and set the guanciale aside.
- When your pasta is almost done, add some tablespoons of the starchy pasta water to your egg/cheese mixture. Mix well, and add more water as needed. An option here is to make a bain-marie over your boiling pasta pot to melt the cheese – this will result in an extremely creamy and well integrated emulsion.
- When your pasta is done (-1 minute), remove it to the pan with the fat. Keep it on low heat and mix the fat and spaghetti
- Now add the egg/cheese mixture and keep moving and stirring to fully incorporate the sauce. Add pasta water as needed. The carbonara is done when the sauce looks a bit runnier than you would like, as it will start to thicken immediately after leaving the pan. Add the guanciale back in and give it a quick toss to mix. Plate and optionally garnish with grated cheese and freshly ground black pepper. Voila.
Contribution
Peter Piontek