Mixed success with carbonara

Jul 27th, 2024

Mixed success with carbonara

Spaghetti Carbonara has always been a favourite of both R and I. The other day (as he does) R had been trawling round the Internet and found a website where they sell the ingredients for “real Italian carbonara”. As a keen cook I had been aware that Italians consider the British take on the carbonara recipe to be a bit of a travesty, so we bought the kit and I have it a go.

My “carbonara” contains onions, garlic, mushrooms, eggs, unsmoked bacon, black pepper and parmesan cheese. Lightly fry the onion and garlic in olive oil, add the mushrooms and cook until soft. Meanwhile grill the bacon until crispy and chop into small pieces. Boil the spaghetti for 10 minutes. Whisk four egg yolks and a small carton of single cream in a bowl. Drain the spaghetti and mix in the onion/mushroom mixture. Turn the heat down, stir a bit and then pour the egg mixture over stirring all the time. Serve with parmesan cheese.

This is the Italian recipe we tried. Chop a smoked pig cheek (guanciale) into small pieces and fry in a small pan until crisp.
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Guanciale is extremely fatty so you don’t need oil. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti for eight minutes (the idea is that it does a bit more cooking in the pan). Whist four full eggs in a bowl and and 100g grated pecorino Romano

The sauce should be very thick and gloopy. Add lots of black pepper but no salt as the guanciale is very salty itself.


By now the guanciale should be very crispy and smoking slightly. Scoop the pasta out of the pan with a pair of tongs into the frying pan with the bacon, letting a bit of water get in as well. Give a good stir and remove the pan from the heat. Quickly mix in the sauce, adding a couple of spoons of water from the pasta pan. Stir well and serve with black pepper and more grated pecorino.  The eggs, cheese and water form a sort of creamy sauce around the pasta and bacon.

This was how it turned out.

 

Things I noted were a) no cream, onions, mushrooms, garlic or oil b) using the whole egg rather than just the yokes (and that’s definitely no yolk)

Actually I was pleasantly surprised, I thought it was delicious – far nicer than my version (which I rechristen Pasta a la Mazzy).  But R didn’t like it, although he did eat it.  We explored the reason he didn’t like it and turns out he didn’t like the taste of either the guanciale or the pecorino.  So one vote for each version.