Oh My Carbonara!

Before coming to Italy, I had heard of variations of pasta alla carbonara, however, I had never had it before so I never really knew how to make it. For one of the cooking classes I had, I learned how to make the traditional Italian carbonara and it's actually a very simple recipe. It's also really flexible because the carbonara is technically the sauce of the dish, so you can use any type of pasta you want like penne or rigatoni or spaghetti, just choose your favorite! Sometimes this is good, but sometimes it makes for a weird texture because different types of pasta hold the sauce differently giving some pastas an advantage when making carbonara. The most famous and typical pasta used in carbonara is spaghetti.

Here are the ingredients for a typical spaghetti alla carbonara:

spaghetti (or any other pasta like rigatoni)
panchetta (or guanciale is used also)
egg yolks
parmesan cheese
pecorino cheese
salt and pepper to taste

The technique to making the sauce isn't hard, but it's a different approach and takes a little more time compared to a typical tomato sauce that just cooks together. Before making the sauce, the panchetta needs to be cooked on the stove top until crispy like bacon, it can then be taken off the heat and put on the side to be used later. Then, the sauce is made by first cracking the eggs, but only taking the egg yolks and leaving the egg whites in a separate bowl. The egg yolks (typically 2 egg yolks for a half pound of pasta) is then mixed with 3 Tbsp of cheese total. It can be divided however you want: equally between the parmesan and pecorino or a little more pecorino or a little more parmesan, it really depends on what you like most. The cheese is then combined with the egg yolks making a type of thicker paste like mixture. While this part is going on, there should be a pot of water boiling on the stove for the pasta. Once it is boiling the pasta can be dropped in for about 10 minutes. Before taking out the pasta and adding it to the egg yolk/cheese mixture, a little bit of boiling water should be added to the eggs to temper them so they don't scramble when the hot pasta is added. Once the egg yolks are tempered, the pasta can be strained out and added directly to the mixture. Mix the pasta with the egg yolk/cheese mixture until everything is coated. Add the panchetta (heating it slightly on the stove before hand to warm it up) and mix well. Add some more cheese on top, salt and pepper to taste, and the carbonara is ready.

This carbonara was made with rigatoni and guanciale: