Carbonara

[TJ Buffalo]

So I happened to run into an interesting explanation of what spaghetti carbonara should be like. Here in the US it's usually overwhelmed with cream and garlic and all sorts of weird add-ins. I followed the guide at this site and ended up with a great meal. One of these days I might try my hand at making guanciale and using that instead of the pancetta that I had.

http://www.29-95.com/restaurants/story/building-perfect-carbonara-roman-puzzle

[wheels]

Superb post TJ. That's 'egg'xactly how it should be done... ...OK I'll get my coat.

Seriously though, that really is a brilliant master class on carbonara.

Phil

[TJ Buffalo]

Yeah, I had tried the Americanized version and was just 'meh' on it. I did this version a few nights ago and it was easy to do and tasted great. Also, the photography is sweet and the editor did an excellent job with the write-up.

[Billy Rhomboid]

It is pretty good, although I am always sceptical about any recipe that claims to be the 'definitive' method of cooking a dish that every grandmother in Italy has her own version of (how many 'definitive' lasagne or bolognaise recipes have you seen, all different?).

The key difference I would say here would be to use 1 egg per diner but spearate them, and only put half of the whites into the mixture, then serve the yolk whole atop the finished dish for the diner to mix in to their pasta themselves.

The parmesan/pecorino argument is one that rages endlessly on foodie forums. Traditionally it would come down to region - Parmiggiano Reggiano tends to be eaten more in the North (around Parma and Reggio Emilia), and Pecorino Romano, no prizes for guessing, further south around Rome where they have more sheep.

Although it is commonly held to be a dish from Rome, no-one can really agree onthe origins of Carbonara - depending on who you listen to it was created for charcoal burners in the forests of teh Abruzzo, or the black pepper used looks like coal flakes against the creamy pasta or it was created in Rome after the liberation in WWII when US soldiers distributed powdered egg and army bacon to the starving populace.

Ultimately it comes down to personal preference of course - any of the variants being as authentic as the other. Made any of the 'proper' ways though it is a delicious dish and absolutely nothing to do with the sloppy swimming in cream effort you get served most of the time in restaurants in the UK and US.

[Massimo Maddaloni]

Hello all,
It takes an awful amount of time to catch up with the encyclopedic knowledge that this forum delivers.
So here I want to stir some dust.
Italy as a whole sucks big time (so much so that I left 13 years ago) but Italian cuisine rules. Period. One of the problems I am seeing, though, is that, because there's many recipes for the same dish, EVERYTHING is kinda acceptable. This is wrong! Sure enough I have eaten hundred different lasagne, dozen carbonara, a million meatballs, a bagillion tortellini ... However each dish has its uniquely ITALIAN mark. In within the many different lasagne there is some unmistakable "lasagneness". You put oregano in your lasagne or fennel seeds in your spaghetti allo scoglio and you end up with something that is not Italian. It may be good but it's most definitely NOT Italian. As a general rule, Italian cuisine (Sicily is slightly different) is very linear: you see a recipe with four-six-ten different spices? Most likely it's some nouvelle cuisine mumbo-jumbo. It's not traditional even if it tastes good. I am not advocating some sort of "law of purity" ... or maybe ... am I?! I guess I just need to rant after another attempt to convince a colleague of mine that Fettuccine Alfredo do not exist outside the US
Regards
Massimo

[mitchamus]

convince a colleague of mine that Fettuccine Alfredo do not exist outside the US

or spaghetti bolognese for that matter

[grisell]

Wrong. We have them both in Sweden, and they are often cooked at home. Especially Spaghetti Bolognese which is an all-time favourite amongst children and served on every restaurant's children menu. Often the kids pour ketchup on it!

But maybe you meant that they don't exist in Italy?

[mitchamus]

umm - yes - that's what's meant by that term.

you can have both bolognaise & alfredo here too.

it's not meant literally.