Risotto Alla Carbonara Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is the trick about carbonara sauce? ›

There might be light variations in the quantities and preparation steps, but the real Carbonara has only 6 simple ingredients: water, pasta, guanciale, eggs, pecorino, pepe. Here's my recipe! well, the first and only trick is related to the ingredients: always use high quality Guanciale and Pecorino and fresh eggs.

Carbonara is almost always served with spaghetti or linguine, but you can use whatever pasta you prefer. For a more unusual take on carbonara, try spinach fettuccine tossed with warm pasta and fresh baby spinach; you'll get a vibrant, beautiful dish with some additional health benefits.

Take the pan of spaghetti and pancetta off the heat. Now quickly pour in the eggs and cheese. Using the tongs or a long fork, lift up the spaghetti so it mixes easily with the egg mixture, which thickens but doesn't scramble, and everything is coated.

What not to put in Spaghetti Carbonara? Don't put garlic, cream, milk or butter. It is not needed. It is fine if you want to make a dish with those ingredients, but if you want to learn how to make this dish correctly, use only pecorino, eggs/egg yolks, black pepper, guanciale, and pasta water.

Whisk Like You Mean It

You're using more egg yolks than whites here, which is what makes carbonara so rich and luxurious. But there's still two eggs-worth of whites in there. Whisking your eggs so that the whites are completely incorporated into the yolks will give your sauce a more uniform texture.

Because in the traditional recipe there is no garlic, if you add it you will lower quality of a very good food. Why is there no garlic in carbonara? Because it's an Italian dish, not an Italian-American dish, and Italian cooking does not use garlic as heavily as Italian-American cuisine.

The dish offers some nutritional benefits. Eggs provide protein, while Pecorino Romano cheese contributes calcium and flavor. However, carbonara is also high in saturated fats and calories due to the use of cheese and cured pork. Additionally, the pasta itself is a source of carbohydrates.

Pecorino Romano: This aged sheep's cheese is always traditionally used in the Roman pastas, and its salty, grassy, earthy flavor is absolutely delicious in carbonara. That said, if Pecorino is unavailable at your local grocery store, you can use Parmesan as a non-traditional substitute.

Carbonara (Italian: [karboˈnaːra]) is a pasta dish made with eggs, hard cheese, fatty cured pork, and black pepper. The dish took its modern form and name in the middle of the 20th century. The cheese is usually pecorino romano. Some variations use Parmesan, Grana Padano, or a combination of cheeses.

What can you use instead of pecorino cheese in carbonara? ›

Parmesan Cheese: Parmesan cheese is a common substitute for pecorino in carbonara. It offers a salty and nutty flavor profile that complements the dish well. You can use it as a one-to-one replacement for pecorino. Grana Padano: Grana Padano is another hard Italian cheese that is similar to Pa.

In a large, metal heatproof mixing bowl, whisk together whole eggs and yolks, Pecorino Romano, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and black pepper. Using tongs and/or a strainer, transfer pasta to skillet with crisped guanciale and its fat; be sure not to drain boiling pasta water.

To avoid the dreaded scramble, the goal is to not let your eggs get too hot too quickly. Rather than add your eggs straight into your carbonara pan, crack them into a different bowl with the Pecorino. From there, you have a few options for how to combine the mixture with your pasta.

The creaminess comes from the eggs and the rendered fat from the guanciale or pancetta. The key to making a creamy carbonara is to toss the spaghetti with the egg mixture and the rendered fat immediately after draining it. This helps to cook the eggs and thicken the sauce.

Spice It Up. Adding fresh herbs to your canned pasta sauce makes it taste like it came straight from the garden. While the pre-made sauce may already include some herbs, adding your own will help enhance those flavors. Tossing in strips of basil, a sprig of thyme or some oregano can take your sauce to the next level.

Using a large mixing bowl and setting it over the boiling pasta water to create a makeshift double boiler helps prevent you from accidentally scrambling the eggs.

Add a few ladles of pasta water and stir until the mixture begins to resemble a sauce. Take another ladle of the pasta water and add it to the egg bowl, whisking it all together. THIS MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO COOK THE EGG WITHOUT SCRAMBLING IT.