The real spaghetti alla Carbonara – as is often the case when you experience recipes from another (world famous) cuisine – is not a joke. It is not always easy to get the desired result in your kitchen, at your home, when the web is full of mistaken suggestions and you only know the taste of that delicious spaghetti, but you don’t know how to do it.
You was in Italy, more precisely in the region of Lazio and that carbonara stole your heart. It did not seem too hard as a recipe to replicate, once back to your home. Maybe. But it is always hard to find a recipe you can trust.
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Brief historical notes
The Carbonara dates back to 1940’s. It was prepared for the first time in Rome, in a trattoria (as some rumors tell) of the center of the city.
A young chef arranged a meal with the ingredients at disposal of the American soldiers (in Italy at the end of the 2nd world war) and with his creativity. He created a dish with eggs, bacon and cheese as main ingredients.
Successively, many little regional changes have turned the original recipe into slightly different versions of the same course. To date, everywhere, this is not so far from the spaghetti alla carbonara that a chef cooked so many years ago for the American guys who helped Italy.
Our recipe for the real spaghetti alla carbonara
If you follow the recipe closely, your dish should turn out fine and tasteful. It is a cheap food and also easy and quick to cook.
Ingredients (4 persons)
- Spaghetti 400 gr
- Guanciale (pork jowl) 150 gr
- Two Eggs and a yolk
- Roman pecorino (sheep’s milk cheese)
- Oil (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
- Salt q.s.
- Black pepper q.s.
Preparation
Carbonara in 4 steps!
1. Put a bowl into a low oven to keep it warm. Heat the oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat. Then, add the guanciale and cook until translucent and golden.
2. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling, salted water until al dente (“firm to bite” but not soft). In a bowl, beat together the yolk and the eggs and then stir in the pecorino, reserving a little for garnish. Grind in black pepper.
3. Save a small cupful of the cooking water, and then drain the pasta well. Tip it into the frying pan and toss to coat with the guanciale fat.
4. Take the pan off the heat and tip in the egg mixture, tossing the pasta furiously, then, once it’s begun to thicken, add a dash of cooking water to loosen the sauce. Toss again, finishing with a little more cheese.
Eat immediately and enjoy your Italian food experience! This time your real spaghetti alla Carbonara are homemade!
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Read also:
A perfect Carbonara by John Bruckman