simple carbonara recipie
 

My brother's mother (dad's first wife) was born and raised in Italy and only left when she came back with dad in the late 40s. For Christmas a few years back, she gave me a sheaf of recipies handwritten on notebook paper that she got from her mom when she left Italy. Everything is in Italian, measured in grams, etc. Unfortunately, I only translated thru a few recipies and have since misplaced the originals in a move :(

We have a friend staying with us for a while, and he cooks excellent Latin food. So we trade off - he makes a pinion, I make carbonara for him. :)

Adjust all of this to your taste, I put garlic powder in the pasta water to give the pasta itself some flavor...

1 pt. heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan or other similar cheese
1/4 lb pancetta either sliced super thin (to shred) or one thick slice diced up into cubes
1 tablespoon butter
1 lb pasta - fettucini is traditional, I like linguine or thick spaghetti.
salt
pepper (white if available)

Put cream in small sauce pan on medium to low heat, and simmer it, stirring constantly - you don't want it to boil, you don't want it to let the fat congeal on the surface, but you do want to be evaporating the water and reducing it by about 30% volume over a 30-45 minute period. Cook up the pancetta in a fry pan, drain it well, and crumble it up fine (if using shredded style - you can leave the dice cubes whole if they are small enough) and put it to the side. Boil up the pasta (I add garlic powder to the water to give the bare pasta some flavor) to your taste as far as doneness. Add a little more heat to the cream, and add about 1/4 cup of the cheese a little at a time, stirring it in. Don't let things clump up, keep stirring. Drain pasta, put in large bowl, add the butter (and maybe some more garlic) and mix it around the pasta to melt it and barely coat the pasta. Dump the cream and cheese sauce over it, mix in, and then add 1/2 the remaing cheese and mix that in. If everyone wants the pancetta, mix 3/4 of it in now. Serve it up with the remaining cheese and pancetta available as "add some extras on top".

Love Carbonara! Can't get good meat here, so I have to use Canadian Bacon.

Canadian bacon would be good. We often use thick diced chunks of Boarshead black forest ham. Any smoked meat would probably be good as long as it doesn't bring too much grease

I did a fettuccine carbonara tour of Italy years back. What a great trip.

One thing I noticed about their carbonaras is they tend to be less creamy, more olive oil. Less bacon, better pasta (and I make my own pasta).

Coal miner's wife?
Jim

Nope, dad served in WW2. Not sure what he did, he claimed ot have been a "supply sargent and I'd take a jeep and some ice cream and drive up into the mountains and look over everything and eat ice cream all afternoon". That is hte only thing he'd say about his time in the army....

Im a purist when it comes to carbonara. I absolutely love it. In trips to Italy I was convinced by locals that this is as close to the original. Yep. What miners ate at the coal mines. And no cream for me.

Fresh pasta
Guanciale
Plenty of olive oil
Raw eggs(organic, pasteurized)
garlic.
Parmigiano-Reggiano

I love Carbonara. I use eggs instead of cream, but no olive oil. Ill have to try both. Ive also started putting pine nuts in with it. Adds great flavor.

That may be because Italians generally don't put cream in it... faverymi has a more "Italian" recipe.

Might want to salt the pasta water too. Spaghetti is the most common pasta used for this.

JR

My Mom used to make carbonara somewhat often. She added scallions, and we always had it with fettucini. Certainly not Italian, or traditional. My Mom's from South Georgia...

Carter

my bet is that like everything else, this recipe gets adapted wherever people emigrate to

in Louisiana you add andouille, tasso, and green onions

what about SFO - any ideas from there?

No cream! Where are the eggs?

Small confession. When I make it I buy a particular brand of ready made sauce, ready made pasta (sometimes... I make my own), and a bit of supermarket cooked chicken. And it's great.

The best one I had in Italy he was at a truck stop type restaurant in a small village. The 2nd best on the isle of Capri.

Everybody eats what they want but the best thing about carbonara next to the pancetta for me is the eggs that are just right, not raw but not omelette either.

What I do:

Pancetta diced in 50/50 butter and olive oil in a pan, fry.
Cook pasta a little firmer than usual, it will soften in the pan.
Mix the pasta through the pan, soaking up as much cholesterol as possible, mix in some pecorino cheese too, salt and pepper.
Mix one or two beaten eggs through it, eat with more pecorino.

Blasphemy!!!!

Thousands of dead Italian grandmothers are now twisting in their graves...

JR

LOL.

Great, now I know why those bolts of lightening are coming down at me.

This.
There are no other ingredients in carbonara.
I cringe when I see mushrooms, peas, or cream in a menu description.

The garlic gets fried in the olive oil and removed. The lardons added.
Egg and parmigiano in a bowl.
Hot cooked pasta over raw eggs/parm.
Lardons and oil added and tossed.

It's about 3 minutes of active cooking.

No cream for me either. I use a blend of Parm and Pecorino.

and LOTS of cracked black pepper.

My favorite pasta dish.

Cream and Parmesan is Alfredo sauce. That recipe is fettuccine Alfredo.

And white pepper? The point of the carbonara is the black pepper resembles the black flecks of the coal. Also, the hot pasta, pancetta and olive oil cooks the raw eggs when they're all tossed together. Carbonara has eggs.

Don't use too much pepper, otherwise it might start to resemble Cacio e Pepe. I know, no eggs in that, or guanciale, but...

You might try saving the egg yolks and combining the pasta with the cheese, oil, etc. (with some pasta water, too) and then serving the egg yolk on top, to be stirred into the pasta tableside.

Then, there are those that do not use garlic in this dish...

JR