Recipe for spaghetti carbonara in the historical aspect
Сarbonara - "coal burner".This is how the name of the sauce that forms the basis of spaghetti carbonara is translated. The history of its origin is associated with the activities of Italian coal miners, who long ago delivered coal throughout Italy, and during their stops they prepared a simple and quick-to-cook dish of pasta, pork cheek and sheep cheese. The surprisingly tempting smells from the coal miners' kettles contributed to the fact that the recipe for the dish quickly spread throughout Italy and became one of the most beloved in the country. Considering the recipe for Pasta alla carbonara in a historical aspect, some risk assuming that the coal powder from the workers' clothes, getting into the kettle during cooking, "flavored" the pasta with black dust. Today, the dish is generously sprinkled with ground black pepper, reminiscent of coal dust, as if paying tribute to the "coal" past of spaghetti carbonara. In all cookbooks, the recipe for spaghetti carbonara is described in approximately the same way. The technique for preparing the dish is simple: boil the spaghetti, render the bacon fat, make a sauce from raw eggs and cheese, add the sauce to the hot spaghetti and mix well. Over its long history, the recipe has acquired cooking options that differ in the quantitative ratio of ingredients, types of meat ingredients and cheeses, and also have additional ingredients in the composition. However, its basis remains unchanged - it is a specially prepared sauce, which, apparently, is the source of the dish's success.
Ingredients and sequence of cooking spaghetti carbonara
To prepare a dish for 2-3 people, a standard 400-gram package of spaghetti and the following set of products are enough:
- raw chicken eggs - 4 pcs.;
- parmesan cheese — 50 g;
- ham - 100 g;
- vegetable oil (preferably olive oil) - 1 tablespoon;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- onion — 1 piece;
- salt and black ground pepper to taste.
Recipe for Pasta alla carbonarainvolves a certain feature that can only be observed when cooking spaghetti and sauce at the same time. First of all, put a fairly large saucepan half filled with water on high heat and bring the water in the saucepan to a boil. While the water is heating, you can cut the ham into small slices, finely chop the onion and garlic, grate the cheese on a fine grater. Add enough salt to the boiling water so that the water tastes a little saltier than your usual food. You need to lower the spaghetti into the saucepan slowly so that as they soften, they are completely immersed in the water. After the water begins to boil evenly, gently stir the spaghetti and cook until half-cooked or, as it is called in Italy, "al dente". The traditional recipe for the dish is based on the use of durum wheat spaghetti, which is usually cooked for 10-12 minutes, as indicated on the package instructions. Therefore, to the required state of "al dente" spaghetti should be cooked 1-2 minutes less than recommended on the package. While the spaghetti is cooking, fry the bacon in a frying pan heated with vegetable oil until a crispy crust begins to form. Then add the onion and continue frying until the onion is soft and the characteristic smell of fried bacon. At the end of the process, add garlic to give the dish a spiciness. While the spaghetti is cooking and the bacon and onion are frying, beat the eggs in a deep bowl with a fork and mix them with grated Parmesan. To prepare the mixture, you can use only the yolks, as recommended by the traditional Italian recipe, but for most people the dish turns out dry. Some cooks solve the problem in the following way - use the yolks of 2 eggs and 2 whole eggs. The mixture of eggs and cheese should be salted and peppered. By the time the spaghetti is ready, all the sauce ingredients should be ready too. Next, drain the water from the pan, add the bacon fried with onions and garlic to the hot spaghetti, pour in the egg and cheese mixture, and mix everything well. As noted earlier, the recipe has a characteristic feature - carbonara sauce made from raw eggs and cheese reaches full readiness from contact with hot, just-cooked spaghetti. Spaghetti carbonara should be served immediately after cooking, so that the sauce does not have time to harden, sprinkled, if desired, with cheese and ground black pepper.
Secrets of cooking spaghetti carbonara
The basis of the juicy and tender sauce is eggs,therefore, it is very important not to make a mistake with their quantity. The proposed recipe recommends taking 4 chicken eggs for a standard 400-gram package of spaghetti. If you use more eggs, the carbonara sauce will be too liquid, less - thick and lumpy. You can prepare carbonara sauce, for example, with cream. So, 100 g of cream will successfully replace 2 eggs or the whites of all eggs in the proposed recipe. However, such a recipe can no longer be called traditional, since adding cream is unacceptable in Italy. But such modifications are widely used in England and America. There, dairy products are very often added to the sauce. As practice has shown, Russian lovers of Italian cuisine have much in common in tastes with their Anglo-American "colleagues", and such an additive is popular in Russia along with sour cream and butter. The recipe for making spaghetti carbonara can be simplified. So, beaten eggs in a bowl can be immediately mixed with chopped ham or other less fatty "substitutes" for bacon, cream and grated cheese. This mixture is also added to hot spaghetti. Considering that the meat ingredient is cold, mix the spaghetti with the sauce over low heat for a few seconds. This recipe may be inferior to the traditional spaghetti carbonara with crispy bacon in taste, but it is healthier and suitable even for small children. Now about the cheese. The traditional recipe for Pasta alla carbonara suggests using aged sheep's cheese - Pecorino Romano, but many will find the Pecorino sauce too sharp. To still feel the real taste of Italy, chefs prepare a mixture of two cheeses: Pecorino Romano and Parmesan. Many chefs recommend adding dry red or white wine to the carbonara sauce. But true connoisseurs and lovers of Italian cuisine believe that Pasta alla carbonara is better washed down with wine than "spoiled" with wine. And lastly. Chefs who often use the recipe for spaghetti carbonara advise warming up the plates before serving the dish. This way, it stays hot longer, and the sauce does not lose its flavor.
