Completely Non-Traditional Carbonara, For Those Who Like Delicious Things

We’ve been eating a lot of pasta here at the Berman-Resnick Quarantine Ranch, maybe more than we should, but who cares, right? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: pasta is a beautiful, comforting dish no matter how you dress it, and that’s what we need right now. So, here’s a quick recipe for another of my favorite preparations; Carbonara. It’s not exactly traditional, I can hear proud Italian voices screaming “Ragazzo! He a-uses the onion and-a the garlic! It should be-a the Pecorino for the cheese! And a-PARSLEY?!?! Mamma Mia! He’s a monsteroré!” Or something like that. And you know what? I don’t care. It tastes good and this is how I like to do it. It’s a great dish for a late breakfast or lunch, because it’s got eggs and bacon or bacon-like goodness, so you can justify eating it early in the day. I obsessed over this dish for like a whole year, trying different methods and seeing what I liked and didn’t like. It’s great to make this one at home and go into a carb-nap after eating it. I hope you’ll try it and tell me what you think.

Ingredients:

• 100g Guanciale (cured pork jowl) or Pancetta or thick cut Bacon, if the first two are unavailable
• 1 small yellow onion or 2 small shallots, peeled and diced very finely
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and slivered very thinly
• 4 eggs
• 250g hard Parmesan Cheese (at LEAST! I like it cheesy)
• Kosher Salt, to taste
• Freshly ground Black Pepper, to taste
• However much pasta you want, whatever shape you like; I recommend Spaghetti or Spaghettini, but sometimes I like Cavatelli
• 100g Italian Parsley, leaves only chopped finely (optional)

Method:

1. Cut your pork product of choice, be it Guanciale, Pancetta or (God forbid) lowly common thick-cut Bacon into small lardons (rectangles). Begin to sweat them in a medium skillet over medium-low heat to render out the fat. Really render that shit out, you want crispy, porky bits and lots of fat to sweat your aromatics in.
2. After about 5-6 minutes, when a fair amount of fat has rendered, add the onions or shallots and garlic to the pan and continue to cook, for another 5-6 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a medium sized mixing bowl, crack in 1 whole egg and three yolks from the remaining eggs. Keep the whites for another use, or don’t. I won’t tell. Grate a bunch of cheese into the eggs (250g MINIMUM, says fatty Zac) and whisk the eggs and cheese together with a fork. Set aside.
4. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to the boil and cook your pasta. Drain, reserving about 2TBSP of the starchy pasta water.
5. Add your pasta to the bacon-onion-garlic pan, pour in the pasta water and toss to coat, turning off the heat after everything is mixed and letting cool down for 1 minute.
6. Add the egg and cheese mixture, tossing rapidly to coat everything. You really want to make sure you’re doing this off the heat source, even though it’s off. Too much heat will scramble your eggs instead of just emulsifying them into a creamy, dreamy, delicious sauce.
7. Season with kosher salt and quite a lot of black pepper, then dish out and top with the parsley, if using, and if you’re like me, even more grated Parmesan cheese.

That’s it, that’s all. Eat up, take a carb nap and swear you’ll go for a run when you wake up to work this delicious dish off, but then just sit on the couch and scroll Instagram while waiting for your fiancée to be done her e-mail battle with her IT department so she can pay attention to you and tell you how nice it is that you’re home to do the cooking during this otherwise unsettling time.

I hope you guys will give this a try and that you enjoy it! The next recipes will be a bit more involved and less pasta-focused, it’s just that groceries get delivered on Thursday, so I’m kinda running bare-bones until then. But I have some great stuff planned (if it all arrives, sometimes things have been running out lately due to PANIC-BUYING, thanks probably Karen!) and I can’t wait to share some more of my favorite recipes with all you guys out there. Thanks for reading and commenting, either through email or the comments section and I hope to hear from more of you all soon!