Western★ quick & simple
Carbonara 까르보나라
A bowl of egg and cheese, a pan taken off the heat, and the nerve to keep stirring when it looks like nothing is happening. The cream goes in at the end, off the heat, and only to loosen it.
- Serves
- 2
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 15 min
Ingredients
- 200g spaghetti
- 2 tbsp cream
- 150g thick-cut bacon or pancetta, cut into short strips
- 2 whole eggs plus 2 yolks
- 60g parmesan, finely grated, plus more to serve
- 1 tsp black peppercorns, coarsely crushed
- Salt for the pasta water
Method
- Beat the eggs, yolks and parmesan together in a bowl until it is a thick paste. Add half the pepper. Leave it next to the stove.
- Boil the spaghetti in well-salted water. Set a timer for one minute less than the packet says.
- While it boils, fry the bacon in a cold, dry pan brought up to medium heat. Let the fat render out slowly. Once the edges are crisp, take the pan off the heat.
- Lift the pasta straight into the bacon pan with tongs, bringing some water with it. Save a mug of the pasta water.
- Off the heat, pour in the egg mixture and stir hard and constantly. It will look thin for about twenty seconds, then thicken all at once. Add the cream, then loosen with pasta water a splash at a time until it coats the strands and slides.
- Serve immediately, with the rest of the pepper and more cheese. Carbonara does not wait for anyone.
The pan being off the heat is not caution, it is the recipe. Egg sets at a lower temperature than most people expect, and a pan that still looks calm is easily hot enough to scramble it.
Guanciale is correct and hard to find. Thick-cut bacon is what actually gets used, and nobody at this table has complained.
Purists will tell you the cream does not belong. She has been making it this way for twenty years and is not taking notes on the subject.