I first ate Spaghetti Carbonara back the 1970s at an Italian restaurant called Casa Nostra (not to be confused with Cosa Nostra!) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was fresh off the farm in those days still with straw in my hair and Italian food, like so many others, was somewhat alien to me. I hadn’t any real idea what I was looking at on the menu and eventually settled on Spaghetti Carbonara. What arrived at the table was this plate full of spaghetti smothered in a luscious, creamy sauce studded with big pieces of bacon. I was in love! I went back many times over the next few years, just for the carbonara and I was never disappointed. (In case you are wondering, at the time I worked on a cruise ship whose home port was San Juan).

Fast forward to 1984 or 5 and I am living in San Francisco. I’ve been dabbling in the kitchen for a couple of years by now and thought I’d give spaghetti carbonara a go. That early in my cooking career I didn’t have any cookbooks yet so my wife and I went down the street to a local book store. We found an Italian cook book with the recipe but the book cost $15 and I wasn’t about to pay that for one lousy recipe (we didn’t have a lot of disposable income in those days!). So my wife found a scrap of paper and a pencil in her purse and she wrote down the recipe as I read it from the book. Feeling a little bit like thieves we left the store and went home to make spaghetti carbonara. And it was awful! I mean really, really bad. I discovered later that I’d missed an important step when dictating the recipe. But I persevered with it and over a period of several months I made a carbonara that was pretty good; not Casa Nostra good but pretty good. Carbonara is a staple in our house to this day and is still one of my favorite things to eat.

I have made many variations of carbonara over the years, some better than others. One version, from a Sicilian chef called Nick Stellino, uses tortellini instead of the more classic long pasta. He has garlic in the sauce too. The version I created back in the 80s has long been relegated to the archives. As I grew as a cook I followed different and, I think, mostly better ways to make it. It served us well at the time though and I’m still quite proud of it having created it myself.

For years I made carbonara the way I made it with no clear notion whether or not I was making it the “traditional” way. Traditional or not, we liked it! Then, a few years ago while visiting Rome I met a Roman chef and I asked her how she makes carbonara. This recipe is based on her method although I don’t doubt there are any number of ways to make a traditional pasta alla carbonara in Rome.

In Rome the bacon of choice for carbonara is guancale (pronounced gwan-CHA-lay. Say it with an Italian accent). Guancale is made like pancetta; that is to say, it is cured with salt, herbs and spices. But while pancetta is made with pork belly guancale is made with the pig’s cheek (Guanca being Italian for cheek). Its flavor and texture are quite different from pancetta and utterly delicious. In many places outside of Italy pancetta can be difficult to find and guancale nearly impossible. But if you are lucky enough to have a resource for it I would urge you to give it a try. Here in San Francisco there are several places where I can buy guancale. I have found though that the herb/spice mix used by different producers varies quite a bit and some are better than others. If you can get it, pancetta works very well indeed and is what I typically use. No pancetta near you? Plain old bacon (streaky bacon) will do just fine, preferably thick cut.

Pasta alla Carbonara comes together quickly and like a soufflé it won’t wait for you so make sure everybody is at the table when you serve it. There is nothing worse than a plate of cold carbonara! Your multitasking skills will be on full display here.

So, the process goes like this:

Place your serving plates in the oven and turn it on to about 150? (65°C). (In Italy it is a crime punishable with a prison term of 30 days and/or a fine of €1,000 to serve pasta on cold plates! No, it isn’t really but it is very bad form and seriously frowned upon).
Set a colander in a large bowl in the sink. This is to drain the pasta and capture the pasta cooking water.
Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. (See my post on How to Cook Pasta here).
While the water comes to a boil you will dice up the bacon and cook it in a skillet until it begins to crisp.
As the bacon cooks you will mix the eggs, grated cheese and pepper in a medium bowl.
By now the water should be boiling. Time to add the pasta and cook according to the package instructions.
Back to the bacon. Using a slotted spoon you are going to remove the cooked bacon to a plate, leaving the bacon fat in the pan. Hey, nobody said this was a healthy dish!
Now it’s time to drain the pasta. This is the important bit so pay attention now.
Drain the pasta into the colander and return the pasta to the empty pot. Save about 2 cups (0.5L) of the pasta cooking water.
All that bacon fat you saved gets stirred into the pasta. The fire under the pot should be off now. All additional cooking comes from the residual heat in the pot and the pasta itself.
Now, slowly pour some of the reserved cooking water into the egg mixture, about 3/4 cup (180ml) or so. Go slowly when you add the water (but not glacially slow!). This is a process called tempering the eggs. That is to say, you want to bring up the temperature of the eggs slowly so they won’t scramble when you add them to the hot pasta.
Pour the warm egg mixture into the pot and toss to coat the pasta. Add more hot pasta water, tossing the whole time until the sauce is rich and creamy. Don’t be shy about adding the water; the pasta will soak it up in a few minutes. (This is the critical step I missed back when I made my first, disastrous attempt at carbonara)
You’re going to let the pasta sit for a minute or two, tossing it a few times and adding more water to adjust the consistency as necessary. You want to keep the pasta and sauce moving, especially at the beginning after you have added the eggs. This is especially important if you are using a heavy bottom pot which will hold a lot of heat and can scramble the eggs if you are not careful.
Now it is ready to serve on your nice warm plates and sprinkled with the reserved bacon bits and extra cheese on top.

That is a lot of words to describe what is in practice, a simple process. But there are a number of pitfalls that can ruin the dish and I feel it is important to point them out.

Carbonara has only a few ingredients: Pasta, bacon, eggs, cheese and pepper. That means these ingredient have to be the very best. You cannot hide an inferior ingredient behind a dozen others.

And now for the recipe:

Buon Appetito!

Author: kaysdad

I am a self confessed foodie and food science geek (some might even say a food snob. I wouldn't disagree). I have been interested in food all my life but, circumstances being what they were, I began to practice my craft somewhat later in life. I love to pass on the knowledge I have gained over the years to anybody willing to learn. At the same time I am always open to learning new things, and not just about food...