Recipe · Lazio · Rome
Carbonara
four ingredients and no shortcuts: guanciale (cured pork cheek), pecorino romano (a hard salted sheep's milk cheese), eggs and pepper. No cream, no onion, no garlic, and guanciale is not bacon. The difficulty is not in the ingredients but in the heat: the cream is made off the flame, or it turns into an omelette
preparation
How it is made
Quantities are for 4 people. The steps are in the order you do them.
- cut the rind off the guanciale and cut it into strips half a centimetre thick, not into cubes: they have to stay crisp outside and soft inside
- put them into a cold wide pan, with no oil and no butter, and turn the heat to medium low: the fat has to melt slowly and become the sauce itself
- when the strips are golden and the fat has gone clear, turn the heat off and leave them aside in their own pan, away from the flame
- bring the water to the boil and salt it lightly, because the pecorino and the guanciale bring salt of their own, and drop in the pasta
- meanwhile beat the yolks in a bowl with the whole egg, the pecorino and a generous grinding of pepper, until you have a thick cream with no lumps
- loosen the cream with two tablespoons of boiling cooking water, poured in a thin stream while you stir: this is the step that makes it glossy and that teaches it not to split later on
- drain the pasta a minute early, keeping a ladle of the water, and tip it into the guanciale pan, still off the heat, stirring for a moment
- take the pan off the hob, wait ten seconds or so until it stops sizzling, then pour in the cream and stir quickly: if the pan is still hot the egg sets and the carbonara is lost
- adjust with the water you kept back until the cream veils the pasta, finish with more pecorino and more pepper, and take it to the table at once
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