Authentic Carbonara

This recipe is special to me. I believe it represents what good cooking is. It's simple, but it requires a bit of patience and research to master. It lets the ingredients shine. It is not pompous, it is cheap, but it is so much greater than the sum of its elements. There's only 5 of them ; but the flavours, oh my ! Now I do not have any Italian roots, but I must have had in another life, because a true Italian mama lives rent-free inside of me, ready to snap at any rascal who uses cream or pancetta and calls it "carbonara". This is the real deal. Try it, and accept to maybe fail once or twice before succeeding ; you will be glad you did.

Authentic Carbonara Recipe

The authentic carbonara consists in pasta with guanciale - which is cured pork cheek, a highly fatty part- that you drench in a sauce made of eggs and pecorino (plus some parmigiano if you want to). The challenge is to reach the perfect texture for your sauce. You must not cook it, otherwise it will just be a pasta omelette ; but it must not be raw eggs either. If you follow my instructions, you should manage just fine !

Ingredients - Advice & key points

I usually go to Eataly to get the produce I need. If you don't have one near your location, you can find fresh produce like guanciale and pecorino at your local Italian deli, maybe even your pasta. For pasta, if not available there, you should be able to order it online quite easily.

• Pasta : While I believe tonnarelli is the best choice for this recipe, and was usually used in restaurants in Rome when I visited, spaghetti is also ideal.

What you must not compromise on is using Bronze Drawn pasta. Why so ? Because when processed this way, the pasta will present small irregularities that will enable the sauce to cling to it. Do not use fresh pasta ; as they often contain eggs, it will make the whole dish too "eggy".

• Guanciale : You can buy it in blocks at your deli or have it pre-sliced. We want quite thin slices -not paper-thin, but almost- so that they crisp up in the pan, about 1,5cm x 4cm.

I'd really advise against replacing Guanciale with Pancetta, or worse, bacon or lard, as it simply yields a different flavour and fat content.

• Cheese(s) : You can stick to Pecorino Romano only if you want to, which is the most traditional way, but I prefer a 50/50 blend or 70/30 blend with Parmigiano, which tones down the strong Pecorino flavour. It depends on your Pecorino type ; if it is quite aged, in the 24-36 months range, you might benefit from adding a bit of Parmigiano.
• Eggs : You should use the freshest eggs you can find, because the sauce is cooked, but barely.
• Pepper : It is important to use freshly ground black pepper. I personnally use this blend from Roellinger, but you can really use any, except highly fragrant, exotic ones.

If you don't own a mortar and pestle, simply use the bottom of a small pot.

Recipe - What to pay attention to

• Pasta :
  • Don't oversalt ! While 10g of salt/liter is usually recommended, here, with the salt from the guanciale and the cheese, you can easily halve this amount.
  • We'll cook the pasta half of the packet cooking time in water, then in the pan with the guanciale. It is important that you taste several times starting 2 minutes before the theoretical end time, so that you get perfect al dente pasta.
• Guanciale :
  • You want to crisp it up, but still let the fat melt. Therefore, cook on medium heat. The process should last around 6 to 7 minutes.
• Pecorino :
  • It is very important to thinly grate your Pecorino to that it melts properly. Look at my carbonara picture ; this is the thickest you can get. You can use a microplane, but if you have a kitchen robot with a really thin setting, it will also work just fine and save you the trouble.
  • Do not use pre-grated cheese ! Additives are added to these cheeses so that they don't clump together, which will prevent it from integrating properly in your sauce.
• Adding your sauce : Remove your pan from heat at least 20 seconds before adding your sauce, otherwise the eggs might overcook. Then incorporate your sauce progressively.
• Plating : I highly recommend heating your plates in the oven for 10 minutes at 80°C before plating. This will prevent the sauce from getting cold too quickly and become unappealingly "set".

Now you're fully ready to cook a magnificent pasta dish. Off to your kitchen ! If you're interested in more authentic italian recipes, you can also check my Ragu alla Bolognese recipe.