Pasta Carbonara Day 2024. For a few years now, April 6 has been celebrated as Carbonara Day, Happy 70th anniversary.
Your global day dedicated to one of our beloved Italian cuisine’s masterpieces.
And this year I’m participating too, hooray, who would have thought, I’m so happy and excited.
Making it is really easy and quick!
Carbonara is one of the most famous recipes in the world.
This dish of Lazio origin has spread rapidly around the world because of its deliciousness.
Its appearance is irresistible and its flavor is full, enveloping, satisfying!
But how do you make the perfect carbonara?
Now I’ll tell you right away! It took me a while to get it right, but try and try again, I figured out how to do it and with much pleasure, I share my secrets with you!
It is so easy to prepare! However, it might be one of those regional recipes that lends itself to a thousand variations.
With a few ingredients, they make this dish a magical dish.
The ingredients for carbonara are widely used, pasta, pecorino, and guanciale. A dish with an authentic, homemade flavor, a true pride of Italian cuisine that is so good it has become very famous and therefore exported everywhere.
Often you risk having a runny yolk, or even worse, overcooked, making this wonderful dish something unappetizing, so you need to be very careful with the temperature at which you handle the eggs.
In this case, I used square spaghetti, but you know that short pasta works just as well and is delicious?
Here is the list of ingredients and I explain how to make carbonara step by step so that you no longer have a pasta dish with scrambled eggs or too runny.
In my opinion, this is the original recipe, but being a dish that is also very family-oriented and linked to tradition, it can be found with some small variations.
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All Seasons
- Energy 641.74 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 27.70 (g) of which sugars 0.50 (g)
- Proteins 19.01 (g)
- Fat 50.05 (g) of which saturated 20.35 (g)of which unsaturated 24.16 (g)
- Fibers 1.77 (g)
- Sodium 1,671.80 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 160 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for Pasta Carbonara
- 14 oz pasta (spaghetti, mezze maniche, penne, bucatini, etc.)
- 7 oz guanciale
- 5 egg yolks (medium size)
- g black peppercorns
- 4 oz Pecorino Romano
Tools
- Pan
- Pot
- Colander
- Grater
- Cutting Board
- Bowl
- Knives
Steps for Pasta Carbonara
Cut the guanciale into strips or cubes of 0.4 inches on each side
Fry it in a pan without adding any fats until it is crispy on the outside but soft inside. Then drain it from its fat and set both aside to cool.
(No need to add oil, as it will cook in its abundant fat).
Meanwhile, put a large pot of plenty of water on the stove and bring it to a boil.
Separate egg yolks from whites and pour them into a bowl.
Place the yolks inside a bowl, add the pecorino “saving two tablespoons for decoration” and a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.
Mix very well.
Add 2 tablespoons of guanciale fat to make the yolk mixture creamy and velvety, mixing with the hand whisk.
Add half a ladle of hot unsalted water to the mixture gradually and mix.
Plunge the spaghetti into plenty of unsalted water (in fact, the seasoning is already quite salty).
Pour the pasta into the pan where you cooked the guanciale, with the heat off, and add the yolk and pecorino cream.
Mix very well to blend everything together.
If necessary, add more water. This operation should be done strictly off the heat.
Add a final grind of black pepper and mix well.
Divide your carbonara among serving plates and serve it hot!
Enjoy your meal!
Tips
To have a nice yellow cream, use eggs with yellow yolk, but, of course, it is not indispensable. I used these, which is why the cream has a nice vibrant color!
No garlic or onion browning! Carbonara is very flavorful, it does not require other particularly intense ingredients.
If you don’t like guanciale, you can replace it with pancetta, as long as you don’t use speck, which is decidedly too salty and smoky.
Never add the egg sauce in the hot pan or worse, on the stove, otherwise you will cook the egg resulting in a scrambled egg effect.
If you liked this recipe, click on lots of stars, thank you so much.
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FAQ
What pasta can I use?
Long pasta or short pasta? Simple, whichever you prefer. Some say the traditional recipe calls for spaghetti, while others prefer short pasta like mezze maniche where the sauce nests perfectly inside.
Can I add cream?
Cream should absolutely not be added as it would further increase the greasiness of the pasta and flatten its robust flavor.
Which pecorino should I use?
Usually, Pecorino Romano is used because it is sweeter and more delicate in flavor compared to the Sardinian one
