Spaghetti Carbonara

Never combine the ingredients in the pan you have had on the burner. The eggs will cook and harden. Place a stainless steel mixing bowl under your colander and let the pasta water heat the bowl. Discard the water and use the heated bowl to combine all ingredients. Toss for at least two minutes.

At Step 2, a clove or two of minced or pressed garlic should be added to the egg and cheese mixture. I've never seen a carbonara recipe that did not include garlic.

At Step 3, you can replace the olive oil with 1/4 C. water. Sounds crazy, but the bacon will remain tender and flavorful. After it has cooled slightly, whisk one or two tablespoons of rendered bacon fat, in a slow stream, into the egg/cheese/garlic mixture. Much creamier and flavorful.

This recipe is spot on. My wife thinks I'm a pro when I cook it :) I do have 1 tip though. Don't be afraid to add the starchy water at the end. Doing so makes it more smoothy and creamy. It might seem a little too wet at first but it will cool down and be just right. The first 2 times I made this dish I only added a 1/4 cup of water because it looked wet enough. However once the dish cooled it got a bit sticky and dry. I regretted not adding more water and learned my lesson.

Just of interest, where is the garlic that is mentioned so frequently in the reviews? In eating Roman spaghetti carbonara there was absolutely no garlic. Much food in Italy has very spare amounts of or even no garlic. It is in America that we add so much garlic to Italian food.

Good version of carbonara. I generally buy pasteurized eggs when I make this. I prefer all yolks rather than whole eggs. I don't generally buy pecorino, so I use all parmesan. If you use bacon, don't get anything too heavily smoked. I generally use bacon because pancetta is triple the cost and guanciale is even more costly. And for goodness sake, why on earth would anybody create a recipe for 3/4 lb pasta. Toss in another egg and a few additional slices of bacon.

I also saute half a chopped onion with the pancetta, and add half a cup of chopped parsley at the very end. That's the way I was taught by my mother, who learned it from the cook at a little Rome trattoria in 1951.

Regardless of whether it should have garlic or shouldn't, whether cream negates it as carbonara or not, whether eggs are necessary (um, yes), this is delicious. I went on a carbonara kick a few weeks ago, and I've tried out eleven recipes so far, and this is my favorite by far for its ease and quickness.

Recipes are guidelines people! If the end result is good, who cares if it doesn't conform exactly to what your grandmother did. More than likely her version varied depending on what was around. I can't believe people become angry over varieties of grated cheese.

You need to add the HOT pasta to the egg/cheese mixture to slightly/lightly cook it, and to coat the pasta with the "creamy" mixture. If you had pasta to bacon grease FIRST, the egg/cheese mixture will not adhere to the pasta, and you will end up with a lumpy mess in the bottom of the bowl-- it will slide off the pasta.
Speaking as someone who grew up in Rome, (a) capitol of Carbonara.

Beat whole eggs (2 @ person?) in pasta bowl, add some olive oil or butter. Cook bacon pieces/pancetta, drain on paper towels; cook sliced onion & garlic, add bacon back in, add white wine or dry vermouth. Cook spaghetti, then spoon some hot pasta water into eggs, stirring, then using tongs put all hot spaghetti into eggs quickly, let sit two seconds, toss. Toss in bacon mixture, seasonings (parsley, oregano, hot pepper flakes?), more pasta water if dry, serve with grated pecorino.

Thank you for not including cream or milk, as many "so called" carbonara recipes do. Cream makes it Alfredo. I fell in love with carbonara when I was stationed in Naples, Italy, with the US Navy. In my version, I only use Parmesan, not Romano, but often add a bit of garlic to the frying bacon.

And yes, eggs are necessary. The dish was invented at the end of WWII when Napolitans discovered the GI's powered eggs.

Well, I suppose you could use eggbeaters. But then again, you could substitute smoked ham, Velveeta and noodles for the other three ingredients and get an acceptable dinner. It just wouldn't be Spaghetti Carbonara.

I've lived in Rome. Never had a Carbonara made with garlic. I do like the version with onions,though. Authentic Roman Carbonara is always made with guanciale. We definitely dribbled the guanicale fat in with the egg mixture. Produces that gorgeously sensual lip slicking as you fork the twirled pasta into your mouth. I especially love carbonara with lots of coarse ground pepper--the 'carbon' of the recipe.

I made pork belly and had some leftover. I thought, "why not make carbonara?".

First, I used a wide noodle, parpardelle, and all of cheese was parmesan, but otherwise I followed this recipe to a tee as I've always made it that way.

The pork belly, sliced into lardons about 3 cm x 1 cm, were substituted for the bacon.

Mind blown...oh my goodness, this was the BEST version of this dish I have ever made or tasted.

I found that if the egg mixture landed on the bottom of the pan, the eggs cooked like scrambled eggs. The trick is to pour the eggs on the noodles , keeping the eggs from pooling on the pan bottom.