Risotto Alla Carbonara Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is the golden rule of cooking a carbonara? ›

What is the golden rule of cooking carbonara? The golden rule to silky carbonara is to whisk your egg whites so that they're completely incorporated with the egg yolks. This will create a smooth, velvety sauce.

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.

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.

While a simple spaghetti carbonara recipe uses pancetta as the meat and a traditional Italian recipe may use guanciale, a cured pork, De Laurentiis combines bacon and pancetta to give her dish a unique salty kick. But she ups the ante even more with a secret ingredient — cinnamon.

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. Add extra pasta cooking water to keep it saucy (several tablespoons should do it).

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.

Must-have ingredients

that there are only five ingredients: pasta, pork cheek, eggs, cheese and pepper. That's it. A real carbonara does not contain onion, garlic, or cream.

Eggs is eggs

Whole eggs work well, but I'm going to add just the one extra yolk, just because this really isn't a dish you'd eat every day, and it does add a glorious eggy richness to it.

The whites of the egg combine with the starch in the pasta water to add viscosity to the sauce while the yolk adds richness and flavor. Because egg yolks are a powerful emulsifier, they also help bind the fat from the pork to the sauce, creating a smooth, velvety texture without any separation.

What type of cheese is best for carbonara? ›

Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano – I like to use a combination of Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano. While these two cheeses ARE similar, I strongly recommend you use BOTH (and not sub one for the other), as it adds a layer of complexity to the flavors.

Carbonara is traditionally made with guanciale, or cured pork jowl, though pancetta is often substituted, and both are fatty, salty and deeply savoury.

The Italian version doesn't use cream or ham. It is made with pancetta (pork belly meat that is salt cured, also referred to as Italian bacon), Parmigiano Reggiano or pecorino romano cheese, eggs, and black pepper—called the basics. The pork is fried in fat, usually olive oil.

Egg whites will provide texture but too much could make the eggs curdle. Meanwhile, egg yolks help to bind the pork fat to the sauce. This also helps to enhance the creaminess. So a good rule to follow is to include one egg yolk per person and one egg white per four people.

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.

I like to use a ratio of 1 whole egg to 3 egg yolks because it balances the richness. If you are looking to avoid using raw eggs, I would recommend making my Cacio e Pepe recipe – this is another one of the four classic Roman pastas but requires only three ingredients (cheese, pepper, and pasta).