Carbonara receipe

[jamiebae]

Any tips? I made one from a Rick Stein receipe on the BBC website and it didn't taste quite right. So how do I make carbonara that tastes like it does in a restaurant in Italy?

Thanks!

[BigLepton]

According to my Italian OH Carbonara was invented when Italy had lots of US soldiers based there towards the end of WW2 to make use of the ingredients the GI's brought with them in quantity - bacon and eggs. Apparently a true carbonara contains no cream and no parmesan:

Fry bacon, onion and garlic in olive oil while pasta cooks. Beat eggs (1 yolk and one whole egg per person). When pasta is done, tip into bacon and onions stirring well to coat everything, take off heat and stir in eggs, tip onto plate and finish with a generous grating of fresh nutmeg. Serve.

PS - GF says if you want 'English' carbonara as she calls it, mix in some cream and parmesan with the eggs.

[bexd]

My dad makes the best carbonara. Its quite simple but i really like it.

1. Chop onion into small pieces, cut bacon into small pieces
2. Break 3 eggs and some milk into a mug stir and add pepper
2. Put spagetti on
3. Fry onions in a little oil when soft but not browned take off and pop in a bowl in an low heat oven to keep warm.
4. Fry bacon and while this is happening:
5. Hopefully spagetti is done take it off the hob and pour into a strainer, shake excess water off and pop a bit of butter/marg in to keep soft and stop it sticking
6.In the saucepan that the spagetti came out of pour in the egg mixture, continuously stir until you have nearly made scrambled egg - add onion and bacon and then spagetti
7. Stir together and serve

Done

[bazking69]

Proper Carbonara is very dry, no cream, cheese or butter. This is the sort of carbonara you would get in Italy or a proper Italian restaurant that isn't catering for the English take on it.
I like both versions, but the proper one is a nice lighter change

[soprano]

Fry some pancetta (not bacon if you can help it) off in a healhty dose of olive oil, add garlic and black pepper once the pancetta has cooked.

Beat 1x whole egg plus 1x egg yoke per person, with a little cream and some grated parmesan cheese, with a little salt added.

Cook the spaghetti whilst you are doing this, when it is al dente add to the pancetta/oil/garlic mix and cook together in the pan for 30 seconds or so. The pasta should take on a shiny glaze all over, if not you have not used enough olive oil.

Take the pasta off the heat, and add the beaten egg mixture. It should give it a creamy coating. Dont cook the egg over the heat or it will turn to scambled egg, just use the heat of the pasta to cook it.

Grate some parmesan and serve.

Edited by soprano on Thursday 30th October 11:38

[bint]

Tesco do a twin pack of chopped pancetta cubes for about £1 and I find they work really well in homemade carbonara.

Loving the WW2 recipe where no cream is used, may have to try that as I use cream and eggs!

[soprano]

bint said:

Tesco do a twin pack of chopped pancetta cubes for about £1 and I find they work really well in homemade carbonara.

they do work well

[jamiebae]

soprano said:

bint said:

Tesco do a twin pack of chopped pancetta cubes for about £1 and I find they work really well in homemade carbonara.

they do work well

I used the Waitrose version of the same thing in mine

I think the fact I used 2 whole eggs didn't help, and I maybe used too much garlic too but it wasn't too far different from some of the suggestions here.