RECIPE: John's Superb Spaghetti Carbonara
Even Italians say they have rarely had better.
John cooks. Oh, how he cooks! During the pandemic lockdown here in Italy, he cooked massive amounts of cacio e pepe, baked ziti, carbonara. We were all going to die anyway, so why not?
Those first months of the pandemic were grim. But not in the kitchen, which is the beating heart of every household. In our kitchen, I made enough cinnamon bread to choke a horse, and John made one incredible Italian specialty after another. I made big plans to go into the next life fat and happy.
I’ve shared other carbonara recipes before, but not John’s specific method for this Italian classic. The word carbone in carbonara refers to the freshly cracked pepper, which is the essential ingredient. The emphasis here is on fresh. In fact, “fresh” is the whole secret to Italian cuisine.
The French have sauces. The Americans have fried foods. The Italians have ripe, sun-soaked, rain-splattered, fresh ingredients. If you want to make the best carbonara, make sure your eggs are as fresh as possible (farm eggs, if any are available), your cheese is freshly grated (no pre-grated cheese, thank you—and no blends!), and your pepper is freshly cracked.
As for the meat, here in Italy, the only two meats that are used in a carbonara are pancetta (pronounced pan-CHET-ah) and guanciale (pronounced gwan-CHALL-ay). Pancetta is pork belly that has been salt and pepper cured. Guanciale (the name means “cheek”) is a pork jowl cured in salt and spices. Note that both meats are salty.
Unless you have access to a specialty store, it might be difficult to lay your hands on either pancetta or guanciale, if you live in the States, so substitutes will have to be made. My understanding is that Amazon sells pancetta. Because imported exotic meats are hard to come by in the U.S., substitutes are acceptable. Bacon, Canadian bacon, prosciutto, smoked ham. No, they’re not exactly the same, but sometimes you gotta work with what you got.
Here then is John’s special recipe for authentic spaghetti carbonara, which serves four.
Ingredients:
6 egg yolks (the more orange, the better)
1 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese (no pre-grated cheese, no blends)
1 tbsp. freshly cracked pepper
5 slices (1/4” thick) pancetta or substitute
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. spaghetti (I’m celiac, so we use gluten free, which is not quite as sticky and delicious as the real stuff)
1 heaping tsp. of coarse, rock, or kosher salt
Instructions:
In a small-to-medium-sized bowl, pour egg yolks and about half the cracked pepper. Mix well.
Add all the pecorino into the egg yolks and pepper. Mix well.
In a pasta pot, boil your spaghetti until al dente, being sure to salt your water after it has come to a boil. Before draining, save about 1/2 cup of pasta water.
In a frying pan on medium-high heat, pour your olive oil and all 5 slices of pancetta or thick-cut bacon, stirring frequently. Meat should be brown and crispy without burning.
Using a wooden spoon, mash the crunchy meat into the olive oil, add another teaspoon of cracked pepper, and then lower temperature. Fry for another two minutes, stirring frquently.
In a large pasta bowl, pour your oil-and-pancetta mixture first and then your spaghetti, stirring, stirring, stirring so the mixture adheres to the pasta. If it’s too thick, add your saved pasta water very sparingly. Remember: this is a creamy, slightly salty dish, not a chunky or runny one.
Add the pecorino mixture to the pasta and mix thoroughly. Season in more pepper to taste. In fact, season to taste at every stage, adding a little more of what’s needed at a time.
Serve immediately.
Buon appetito!Do you enjoy carbonara or other Italian pasta dishes? I wanna hear about it. Be sure to leave your comments in the comments section below.
I was going to ask about the spaghetti -- what is the gluten free actually made of?
Chortle, it sounds *wonderful* and I will try it. But I cannot eat any grains, so it will be served incorrectly on ribbons of zucchini.
Here is my first husband's family recipe for Carbonara. It is revisionist because of the parsley, and because his cook in Rome insisted on including one sweet onion per diner.
I was surprised to see that John's recipe includes pecorino instead of parmesan. chacun à son goût! and there is plenty of room in the Big Tent of Delicious Italian Foods for more than one type of Carbonara.
The Ambassador’s Carbonara
My first husband was the son of an American diplomat. Their cook in Rome originally taught the family this recipe, when my ex-husband was a child. It became one of their most beloved family meals. Even when the father had become US Ambassador (sequentially) to a bunch of countries in Africa, they would prepare it on the cook’s day off.
Carbonara is Miner’s Pasta: it was originally a recipe Italian miners would make. It's on menus with cream in it all the time here in America, although that is considered revisionist in Italy.
The addition of parsley makes for a fresh note in the smoky, savory bacon, egg and cheese mixture.
Ingredients:
One fresh egg per person, and one extra for the pot.
Two or three slices of bacon per person, chopped small
One medium Vidalia onion per person, chopped fine
A handful of parsley, stems removed, chopped fine
Cracked black pepper to taste
Aged Grana Parmesan cheese grated on the top
Pasta cooked al dente to serve your family and guests.
Method:
Put the chopped bacon and onion into a heavy skillet with a thick bottom, preferably cast iron or enamel over cast iron.
Initially put the heat on medium-high, to render the bacon fat. Stir and fry the onion and bacon on medium-high until the onion begins to pick up brown edges.
Reduce the heat and cook until the onion is a uniform brown color, the color of brown paper bags. Stir frequently, or the bacon and onion mixture will stick and burn. The onion will be indistinguishable from the bacon in a seething brown mixture when it is done.
Add parsley about three minutes before transferring the bacon and onion mixture onto the pasta.
While the pasta is cooking, break eggs and beat lightly in a separate container.
Once the pasta is cooked, drained and placed into the serving bowl, pour in the raw egg mixture and stir vigorously to heat the eggs thoroughly.
Then put in the hot bacon, parsley and onion mixture, including the bacon fat, and stir vigorously again. The egg should cook to a soft curdle from the hot pasta and the hot bacon-onion mixture.
Grate Parmesan cheese over the top. With a salad, this is a feast.