Yo everyone! Big thanks for all the tips you tossed my way after my carbonara flop. Took another stab at it today, and it’s safe to say, we’re getting there. The sauce was a tad on the liquidy side, but hey, it’s all part of the process. 🙂
So here’s the scoop on my pasta saga:
-Started by boiling some spaghetti for a solid 7 minutes and frying up 100g of bacon in some butter and olive oil until it was nice and crispy.
-In the meantime, I got down with mixing 2 egg yolks and 50g of grated parmesan until it felt kinda dough-like.
-After letting the bacon get its crisp on for 5, I turned off the heat and let the bacon chill on a plate.
-Right when the spaghetti was about to be done, I scooped out 5 tablespoons of that salty pasta water and blended it into the egg mix to get our sauce going.
-As soon as the spaghetti was perfectly al dente, I fished it out and threw it into the pan, hit it with a dash of pepper, and stirred like a madman to get that even fat coating.
-Threw in the bacon and splashed in 6 tablespoons of pasta water.
-Topped it off by pouring the sauce over and gave it one final whirl before it hit the plate.
Heads up: If you want to avoid a watery sauce, stick to just 2 tablespoons of pasta water when you first mix the spaghetti in the pan, not 6 later on.
Cheers for the carbonara boost, you all rock! 🤘
by weird-but-hawt
6 Comments
why are you frying bacon in olive oil when bacon has its own fat it can cook in?
Even though this looks like a bit of a disaster I really like your attitude.
You’re embracing the mistakes and learning from them. You’ll end up nailing this knowing a lot more than you would if you had been somewhat on point the first time.
As for tips, try and see if you can get guanciale. It really makes a big difference for both the emulsification of the sauce and flavour. The key to this is the fat, it will help emulsify (bind) things better. If you’re stuck with bacon then you can use a little bit of butter to bring it together (don’t tell the Italians). Never use pre-grated cheese.
If you melt your porkfat in a pan, then take off the heat and let cool a little down while you cook your pasta. Mix your cheese, eggs and pepper in a bowl and stir it into a thick paste then once your pasta is cooked, transfer it into the pan with the pork fat, stir a little, then here’s a good trick, put your cheese-egg-pepper paste on top of the pasta, add a tiny bit of pasta water to the pasta, then start stirring it all together gradually emulsifying the sauce, add pasta water in small steps as needed. This tends to work out well with the paste sitting on top of the pasta as you start stirring.
For the ultimate method look up Luciano Monosilio on YouTube where shows how to get the right consistency using Bain Marie to thicken the sauce.
Nice progress. Top attitude!
Dude
My guy there’s way more than 5 tablespoons of pasta water in there. I told you to spoon it in slowly until it’s creamy in your last post. What happened lol
You should take your spaghetti out before it’s al dente, otherwise it’ll be overcooked.
The cheese is not Parmagiano Reggiano but Grana Padano, it’s not the same.
You should use guanciale instead of bacon, it’s not the same.
What pasta brand did you use?
Chef here. That’s how we do it a la minute but you can cook it a bit once the egg is in the pasta to tighten. I turn off the heat and let the residual do the work. You have a lot of excess egg going on there.