Authentic Spaghetti Carbonara. From Rome with love
A secret guide to make (meat eating) Italians happy
Among many favourite dishes, when it comes to cooking any of them, Roman style Spaghetti Carbonara is the clear winner. Cooking a real Carbonara means no nonsense, no cream, no ham, no cheap cheese, or other blasphemies.
Romans are mad for this pasta. It’s the quintessential one. A lot of people get it wrong—especially outside of bella Italia. Carbonara is a lovely dish to cook for friends, kids, strangers and loved ones. Also works wonders, if you have a bad day and nothing makes sense.
This is a recipe that has been passed down for many generations. You can test this Carbonara with any Italian you know. It will in no time wipe off their initial smirk, and award you instant pasta OG street cred. Stick to this recipe, and they will probably love you for life. If you are lucky, it might awake happy memories of their beloved grandmothers. What’s better than that?
Shopping list for two hungry Carbonara connoisseurs:
- 7 ounces or 200 grams of cured Guanciale (pork cheek)
- 1/2 pound or 225 grams of Spaghettoni (bigger Spaghetti)
- Quality salt
- Three large eggs (organic ones since the sauce is served semi raw)
- 3/4 cup or 170 grams of Pecorino cheese (aged).
- Freshly ground pepper
Here is a step-by-step recipe that is spiced up with some sugar. To keep things interesting, I felt the need to put some meat on the bone of an otherwise bland cooking instruction. I hope you don’t mind. I prepared another version of the same recipe, if you prefer a more barebones guide.
01 Boiling The H20
01.1
When the water is boiling, add a good amount of salt to it. 1 ounce per gallon / 10 grams per liter. I eyeball it. Better too much than too little. It is the only opportunity to season the pasta properly. Pasta tastes a bit bland without a hefty punch of salt in the water. Cook the Spaghettoni for around ten minutes.
Take it out of the water just before the pasta is perfectly al dente. Al dente means it should still have a bit of a bite to it. The pasta will soften some more when you mix it with our warm, godly sauce later on.
Get quality pasta. If it is coated with a little white dust, that’s usually the good stuff. Bonus points if you actually make some from scratch.
Pro Tip
Please, stay away from adding any olive oil or wine corks to the boiling water. It’s not only utterly unnecessary, it kinda belongs to the realm of Sicilian superstition at this point. Boiling water, a handful of salt, that’s all you need. Trust me! If you ever catch an accomplished chef doing any of that sorcery, you are perfectly entitled to give your eyebrows some downward dog action. Gordon Ramsay, I’m looking at you, you blasphemic Carbonara contortionist!
02 Guanciale Preparation
02.1
While the water heats up, remove the animal skin from the Guanciale. It’s usually only on one side. Cut the pork cheek into somewhat little blocks. Not too small though. I’ll leave the size up to your own desires. Have fun!
For the original Carbonara it is essential to go the extra mile. Please find an Italian deli that has cured Guanciale. It is super tender pork cheek. On the fatty side for sure. Don’t cop out and get other bacon.
If you have a friendly Guanciale connection, I’d ask to cut the meat into ring-finger-thick slices. It makes this whole operation at home super smooth. Your fingers are also less tempted to slip in front of the blade with all that fatty goodness. Probably saved me once or twice from making “pasta cannibale”.
Pro Tip
If you wanna get your hands one some prime Guanciale whenever you need it, make friends with a little Italian mom-and-pop shop. Supporting such little family businesses is a good idea anyway. Outside of Italy, especially away from big cities like NYC or Paris, you might need to hustle a little to get your hands on some mediterranean prime pork cheek. If the Italian owners don’t think you are legit or don’t like you, guess what, it will be out of stock. Always! Probably waiting behind the counter for some smooth talking AS Roma soccer fanatic. I’m not kidding. Quality Guanciale is like crack among Italian bacon aficionados.
03 Sauce Preparation
03.1
Before you fry the Guanciale, you should first prepare the sauce. For two people crack two eggs. Add a third egg yolk and beat it thoroughly. Some effort and love is expected.
03.2
Find your new Mac Pro or a similar cheese grater. Make a nice little mountain of Pecorino cheese. You definitely want a good amount. I leave it up to your personal level of cheese frenzy. If you can, get the aged Pecorino to keep things authentically Roman. It’s a bit more salty.
Save 1/3 of the cheese for the embellishment at the end. Take 2/3 of your cheese mountain and mix it with the eggs. Make sure eggs and cheese are becoming new best buds.
That’s pretty much the whole sauce. The magic kicks in when the fat from the Guanciale bacon gets into the mix. You don’t need to add salt. The meat already gives you a salty heavyweight punch.
03.3
Grind some fresh pepper and add it to the egg and cheese mix. The fresher the pepper, the better the dish. Carbonara sauce can handle a good amount. Feel it out.
If you identify as a spice lord and think about throwing some trillion Scoville Carolina Reaper pepper in there, I beg you, stop cooking now. Maybe it’s time for an ashram or some silent yogi retreat high up in the Himalayan mountains. Insane amounts of capsaicin may not be the answer for everything. Beware the after-burn spice mountain worshippers. I kid you of course—with love and affection for human rocket ships. Nevertheless, I’d be disappointed to see a spiced up hellfire version of this recipe on heatonist.com.
Pro Tip
Here is the most important bit, the secret sauce if you will. You never, ever add any cream or milk to that mix. No garlic as well. Although you will find a surprising amount of Italian restaurants doing this, this is absolutely forbidden. It’s an apocalypse provoking blasphemy. Those chefs do it because they don’t know better or to streamline their process. Sneaky restaurants assume you don’t taste the difference. One last bit of advice. If you ever present an older Italian lady from Rome with a Carbanara that has cream in it, you will probably need to see an exorcist. Especially if she has Sicilian roots, she might curse the living daylight out of you.
04 Guanciale Sizzle
04.1
Next you need a sizzling hot frying pan. Coat it with small amounts of olive oil and generously sizzle the Guanciale blocks in green gold. A few seconds in the pan and the fat will splash out of the meat.
This liquid pork cheek fatness is the secret to making this dish into a nirvanic, out of body delight from culinary neverland. I confess, usually I don’t even like pork or bacon that much. The smell will draw people from remote parts of the house into your kitchen. Your neighbours might show up unannounced because they were smelling your bacon from their driveway.
04.2
Take the meat from the heat before it gets too dark and crispy. I would say aim for crunchy, golden blocks. Let the meat and the fat cool down for a moment, but keep everything in the pan.
A good amount of excess fat in the pan is essential for the sauce. At first I took some of it out. Too much fat, yadda, yadda, yadda. Unfortunately, the sauce was not as creamy or as yummy. But hey, it’s not a dish one should indulge in daily anyway. Save it for a nice occasion but then go all in on it.
05 The Magic Happens
05.1
We are close to the finish line. If you timed it right, the Spaghettoni pasta should now be ready. Take it out of the boiling water and save some of the precious pasta water.
When the Guanciale bacon has cooled off a little, mix it with the pasta. No egg-cheese-pepper mix at this point. The pasta should get a nice coating of the fat and absorb the meaty flavours. Give it a minute to merge and cool down.
05.2
Now it’s time for the delicate part. Take the pan with the Spaghettoni off the heat completely. Add the egg-cheese-pepper mix to the pasta.
If the meat or the fat is too hot it will fry the eggs. The result is a clumpy sauce. We definitely want to avoid that. Getting this timing right is the only tricky bit. You may need two, three attempts before you hone in on the creaminess the sauce demands. No big deal, we’ve all been there.
Continuously stir the mix in circles for a minute. Chopsticks come in handy for this. You want the sauce to become very creamy and not too raw. You will need to feel out the balance of this. In there lies the whole Carbonara magic.
If something looks a bit too raw and not all that creamy, you can cheat a tiny, little bit. Add a splash of the hot pasta water you saved—incrementally until it looks like Spaghetti Carbonara. If you end up with scrambled eggs, the heat was probably still too high. Start over next week—with gusto.
05.3
Before you serve it to your loved ones, add another layer of grated Pecorino cheese on top. The 1/3 you saved. The final embellishment is a little bit of extra pepper. Time for applause.
Now you know the secret to making every meat eating Italian on the planet happy. It's a simple and beloved dish that you can prepare within ten minutes. I prefer vegetarian food, but it’s great for dinner parties, because you are not forever busy, and can soon join your crowd. Cooking this for eleven people was a bit of a challenge though. If you have meat lovers over for dinner, they will certainly go home with a delighted belly.
Prolonged food coma experiences come with the package. If you have trouble sleeping one night, I’d recommend giving this dish a shot. Roman Spaghetti Carbonara is one heavy indulgence. Twenty minutes after dinner, and you will be knocked out cold for the whole night. Good luck if you have other activities planned after such a treat. Usually I pass out in a jiffy, and dream of Pasta Grannies.
