An Unapologetic Cookbook Carbonara
Carbonara is pretty simple, This should be no different
Time: 1 Hour & 6 Minutes
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
Difficulty: 2/5
Carbonara is a pretty simple food and typically tastes better than its ingredients may suggest. I’ve made carbonara in the past and it has turned out pretty nice, but I’ve never made one for this blog. This recipe is from Joshua Weissman’s An Unapologetic Cookbook. To this point, his recipes have been pretty hit or miss for me, but this carbonara is so simple, I doubt this one will be a miss.
Key Ingredients & Omissions:
For carbonara, the cheese is pretty important, so I recommend using high quality Parmesano Reggiano & Pecorino Romano that you think tastes good. You could also use Gana Padano instead of the parm. Other than that, everything else is pretty straight forward. I used pancetta for the pork portion of this recipe, but bacon and guanciale are alternatives.
Tools:
Pot for boiling pasta
Rasp Style Grater
Large Skillet
Cooking Review:
Prep: 47 minutes
To prep, I got some water over high heat to bring it to a boil. While it was coming to a boil, I added a generous amount of salt and worked on grating the cheese. The recipe calls for quite a lot of cheese, so it took a while for me to grate it all. I ended up needing to supplement the Parmesano Reggiano with a little extra Pecorino to make it to 310 grams. I also chopped up the garlic. Finally, I separated the yolks from 5 eggs. Once the water came to a boil, I added the pasta and let it cook for 12 minutes, reserving about a cup of the pasta water at the end.
Pancetta: 8 minutes
I added the pancetta to a cold pan and turned the heat to medium low heat and cooked it, stirring occasionally, until crispy and brown. I removed the pan from the heat and stirred in the garlic.
Finishing: 11 minutes
I added the drained pasta to the pan with the pancetta and tossed until coated. The egg yolks were added to the pan along with the cheese. I stirred and tossed as best I could to incorporate everything, but with so much cheese and a very full pan, it got pretty messy. I added pasta water a tablespoon at a time to help melt the cheese and loosen the sauce, using the whole cup of water by the end. Once everything was combined enough, I plated the pasta, topping it with freshly cracked black pepper.
Analysis:
I wasn’t the biggest fan of this carbonara recipe. I feel like the amount of cheese this recipe calls for is too much. It isn’t very balanced at all, as the end result is pretty salty and has a very strong, almost to the point of bitter cheesy flavor. The texture was gritty, as well. Carbonara is supposed to be creamy, but this was more on the gritty side of things. I’m not really sure what went wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cheese measurement is wrong. There is well over a half pound of grated cheese in this recipe which seems and looks like overkill. Trying to mix everything into my largest skillet was a challenge. I think maybe half or 3/4 the amount of cheese would have helped every aspect of this recipe. I decided to give this recipe a 5/10. I think the pieces of pancetta, while few and far between, were the best parts of this recipe.
