What I eat where I go

Passport & Plate - Pasta Carbonara

Brazil | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
300g of grano duro pasta
5 yolks
100g of pancetta
100g of pecorino romano cheese
50g of bread crumbs finely coarsed
50g of butter
2 liters of water
salt
black pepper

 

How to prepare this recipe
Start by bringing the water to a boil. As soon as it starts to, add salt to the water, but not as much as you normally would - remember that there will be cheese later. Add the pasta to the boiling water.
While it is cooking, start frying the pancetta in a pan over medium heat. There is no need to add any fat, since what is in the pancetta will melt. Fry until golden brown and reserve.
Add the butter to a small pan and and coat two of the yolks with the bread crumbs. Wait for the butter to fully melt over medium heat and fry the yolks carefully just enough to create a crispy skin underneath. Turn off and remove from heat. Reserve.
Drain the pasta and save some of the water. Heat the pan with the pancetta again and throw the pasta in. Beat the remaining yolks until creamy, lower the heat over the pan and throw them in, constantly stirring so the yolks don`t start cooking. Add a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water as necessary and keep stirring until a creamy sauce is formed.
Plate the pasta, put the fried yolk on top and some fresh pecorino romano.

 

The story behind this recipe
Being born in a Italian family, I have been living inside a kitchen since I can remember. Watching my grandparents, parents and relatives cooking became part of my routine growing up.
Pasta Carbonara was the first Italian recipe I cooked all by myself. Despite being a simple dish, it takes a lot of care and attention in order to be done properly. And that is what I was taught by watching my family in the kitchen. The preoccupation with the quality of ingredients; how my mood is when it is time to make a meal. All of it has a direct influence on the food.
As I said, Carbonara was my first dish. I liked it so much that during the years it became almost an obsession for me to prepare the perfect one. I started testing different ways of cooking, different kinds of pasta and ingredients. Until I got to the recipe I find it is my own.
The sauce made from the free range eggs and the cooking pasta gets the perfect balance in both flavor and texture. The pancetta, with its great fat to meat ratio, gives the recipe the right amount of unctuousness and compliments the flavor with a little extra salt and spices. Finally, the seared yolk and fresh grated pecorino give a boost to the sauce, creating a world of lovely and creamy pasta.