Ingredient

Carbonara

Carbonara is egg yolk, hard cheese, cured pork and pasta water emulsified into a sauce by residual heat. There is no cream in it. The entire difficulty is getting the eggs hot enough to thicken and not hot enough to set.

How the sauce works

Beaten egg yolk and finely grated hard cheese make a paste. Add hot, starchy pasta water and it loosens into a sauce; add hot pasta and the residual heat thickens the yolk just enough to coat.

The starch in the pasta water is doing real work. It thickens the sauce, helps it cling, and — importantly — gets between the egg proteins and makes them far less likely to set into curds. Carbonara made with plain water is much harder to control.

Cream is not in the traditional recipe, and it is worth saying why it is added: it makes the sauce nearly foolproof by diluting the egg and adding fat. It also makes it taste like something else. Learn it without, and use cream when you want a different dish.

The method

1. Cut guanciale or pancetta into strips and render it slowly in a cold pan until the fat has run and the meat is crisp. Do not rush this or it toughens.
2. Beat the yolks with a great deal of finely grated pecorino and a lot of black pepper into a stiff paste.
3. Cook the pasta in well-salted water and reserve a good mugful of the water before draining.
4. Loosen the egg and cheese paste with a few spoonfuls of the hot pasta water, whisking, until it is a pourable cream. Doing this first is the key step and the one most recipes skip.
5. Take the pan of pork off the heat entirely. Add the drained pasta and toss it in the fat.
6. Now pour in the egg mixture and toss continuously, off the heat, adding more pasta water until it is glossy and coats every strand.
7. Serve at once, with more cheese and pepper.

Why it scrambles, and how to avoid it

• The pan was still on the heat. Take it off, and if it seems very hot, wait thirty seconds.
• The egg went in undiluted. Loosen it with hot pasta water first — this both warms it gradually and dilutes it.
• Not tossing. The sauce must be moving constantly while it thickens.
• Too little pasta water. It is what makes the sauce and what protects the egg. Use more than you think.
• If it does scramble, a splash of cold water and vigorous tossing sometimes brings it back. Usually it does not.

The ingredients

Guanciale

Cured pork cheek. Fattier and more aromatic than pancetta, and what the dish traditionally uses.

Pancetta

A good substitute and much easier to find.

Streaky bacon

Works, though it is smoked, which changes the dish considerably.

Pecorino Romano

Sharp, salty sheep’s cheese. Traditional.

Parmesan

Milder and nuttier. A mix of the two is a common compromise.

Pasta

Spaghetti or rigatoni. Both hold the sauce well.

Common questions