Transcription
I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor, and today we're going to make foolproof carbonara. I'm going to teach you how to make carbonara that's luscious, creamy, and full of flavor. This is Carbonara 101.
Carbonara is one of those dishes that can seem super complicated, but in the end, it's really easy, and all you really need is a few techniques. If you follow all of my techniques, it'll be foolproof every single time.
One of the most important ingredients in carbonara is black peppercorns. Now, I like to grind my own, but before I grind them, I like to toast them. And toasting is going to give us this really nice, nutty, deep black pepper flavor. So, put it over kind of medium-low heat, and we're just going to put the peppercorns in until I start to smell that they're fragrant. It's just a subtle nuance that makes this dish so much better. Make sure we're moving our peppercorns around so that they toast evenly.
So, what I'm looking for here is that I can smell my peppercorns getting fragrant. They start to kind of like move around in the pan a little. You'll see they'll jump a little, right? We might hear a little pop. And once I hear that first popping, I take it off. I don't really want to go any further than that, 'cause then we're going to get it overcooked. I'm going to let these cool on this tray, and in the meantime, I'm going to start prepping my other ingredients.
One of the keys to a foolproof carbonara is to gather all of your ingredients. You need everything within arm's reach, so when I cook my pasta, I'm not waiting for anything. I can make it right away.
Now that my peppercorns have cooled, I can crush them. Now, you could use a pepper grinder if you want, but I'm going to use the old classic technique. I get the pan, I hold it down with my hand here, body weight down, so I'm pushing and rolling, almost like you're doing a lever, right? I'm pushing down on this side and crushing my peppercorn and rolling. So I can smell as I crush that these are super fragrant, super nutty. That toasting brings out those flavors, we get the oils out, and I don't want this to be super fine. I want it to have some texture to it. We're talking about how to take this dish from just kind of a standard dish to just that much better.
And as a chef, grating your own cheese is super important. For my carbonara, I choose to use two cheeses. I'm using Parmesan cheese, and I'm using Pecorino. And I do buy the good stuff for this. I go to the Italian cheeses. If you can get it, go for the best cheese you can find. I like to use a microplane for this. Now, a microplane is a very fine grater. When this cheese melts, I want it to be nice and fine. I don't want to get shreds in there. I want to get this beautiful, fine cheese that's going to make my sauce super silky in the end.
What I like about using two cheeses here is the Parmesan gives me a nice nuttiness and it gives me a really great, kind of earthy flavor, whereas the Pecorino is super sharp and it's got a lot of bite to it. So, look, I have a lot of cheese here, and that's a good thing. That's what I want. So, this is for about four servings.
Now that my cheese is grated, I can get to my eggs. For carbonara, I like my eggs to be room temperature. So, what I'll do is I'll set them on the counter for about a half hour before I make the dish, 'cause if they're cold, that's going to slow everything down. I'm going to put hot pasta and cold eggs, and the dish isn't going to come together and emulsify right. So, eggs are the binder for this dish. This is what brings the whole thing together, and I'm going to use three whole eggs and two egg yolks.
And what I like to do is crack my egg in half and just run my yolk between the shells until the white all runs out all away. A lot of times, people will just use straight eggs for this, and that's okay, but the yolk is a lot of fat, and the white is a lot of liquid. So, by adding the extra yolk, I'm adding more fat to the dish, more richness to the dish.
The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to mix my eggs and cheese together, and this is a really important step because I want this to be a smooth and creamy sauce around my pasta. We want to get this into a nice homogeneous mixture so that when we actually add the pasta to it, we don't get scrambled eggs. Not a good look for carbonara. All right, so let's just take the cheese, dump it into the eggs, and we can just get this together, and you'll see it's going to get kind of like a a thick, creamy mixture. Get that all in there. I use a whisk just to get this together, but I'm not going to use a whisk past this point. But you can see the mixture looks nice and creamy, it's come together, there's no bits of eggs or bits of cheese that aren't mixed in, and that's what I want.
This is super important, getting your carbonara to the right finished texture. At this point, I want to add a little bit of my toasted black peppercorns, right? Give it a shake. Get a little bit of your finely ground stuff, get a little bit of your bigger chunks. So, my egg and cheese mixture is ready to go, and now it's time for the star of the show: the guanciale.
And this is super traditional for carbonara. Now, if you don't have guanciale, if you can't find it where you're at, you can use pancetta. I've seen bacon be used. Traditionally, guanciale is used for carbonara, and that's the jowl or the cheek of the pig that's been cured. Salt-cured, sometimes they rub it in spices, and sometimes in peppercorn, but it's just cured. It's salty, it's fatty, it's delicious, and that's why they use it. It has that fattiness when we cook it out, we get a lot of fat that helps make our sauce smooth and creamy.
So, when it comes to guanciale, I like nice big chunks of it. So, I like to cut my own. I don't like to buy pre-cut. So, I want to get nice matchsticks or big lardons or chunks. Don't be shy. I want them to be super visible in my dish. So, you see I have kind of like this this matchstick or a very thick matchstick. So, we're going to cut those into nice chunks. I don't want any wimpy little chunks. I want to see this guanciale. It's a beautiful ingredient. It's got some meat on it, but it's not super meaty.
Now that I have my guanciale cut, my eggs, cheese, and pepper mixture, we are ready to make our carbonara. You'll notice in front of me, I have all the ingredients I need within arm's reach. This is one of those things as a chef that you have to set yourself up for. It's proper mise en place.
My water is boiling. I'm going to add some salt to my water. I want my water to be basically sea salty. And I'm using uh dry pasta. It holds the sauce really well. I like to use spaghetti for this. I like the shape, I like the way it holds onto the sauce, I like the bite to it. Pasta is going to take about 10 minutes, and in that time, I'm going to get my guanciale ready to go.
So, turn your heat on. I like to use a little olive oil in my pan before I start cooking my guanciale. People will say, "But Chef Frank, the guanciale has a lot of fat." I like to put this in the pan to get the the process going quicker. My guanciale is going to brown a little more evenly. I don't really have to wait for that fat to render out. So, a little bit of fat in my pan to start is the way that I always go. We're going to cook this until it is light golden brown. You can hear it start to sizzle. I don't want this to be crisp. I want it to have some chew to it in the end. So, we're not going to brown it all the way. We want to keep all the fat. A lot of people say, "Whoa, that's a lot of fat." We're going to put that in the pasta? Yes, we're using all the fat. The fat is key to this dish. It's also going to emulsify with the egg yolks and make this sauce super creamy.
Don't forget to get in there and stir your pasta occasionally. We don't want it sticking. Well, how do you tell if pasta is done? If you look at it right now, it's still very firm, right? We want it to be nice and al dente, which means to the tooth. We don't want it to be overcooked. We want it to have a little bite to it.
My guanciale is ready to go. You can see it's still bubbling away. It's not completely done, but if I leave it in the pan and keep it hot, it's going to continue to cook. I don't want it to get any more crisp in this. So, I think my pasta is ready. The best way to determine if it is is to take a piece, try not to burn yourself, and actually taste it. And that's good to go.
A lot of people will mix carbonara in a pan, and I don't like doing it in a pan. Right? Pans retain heat. I'm afraid my eggs might overcook and get scrambled. So, I like to mix everything in the bowl that I mix the cheese and eggs in. So, let's take our pasta out, right? I drain it, but I don't drain it too well. We want to get a little bit of that pasta water in there. The pasta water has starch, it has a little bit of salt. So, this goes right into my eggs, and this is going to start that process of cooking those eggs. And then guanciale and all the fat goes in. Don't be shy. And then we mix.
I have a pair of tongs, and here is the key here. We want to mix, mix, mix, right? We want that egg and that cheese to start to cook. We want that fat to be emulsified into the sauce. But look at that, right? Super creamy. Those eggs start to cook. It smells cheesy. Oh my gosh. Nice big chunks of the guanciale, which this is the important part here. We're emulsifying the sauce around the pasta. All that fat from the guanciale is getting in there, and we get this beautiful, luscious, creamy sauce. Look at that. It's almost like magic when this sauce comes together.
Give it a little twist. I'm going to take some of my guanciale, put it on top, right? Get some of that creamy guanciale from the bottom. I'm going to take a little more of my toasted black peppercorns, and just a little more of my Pecorino and Parmesan cheese, as if there wasn't enough already. And that is foolproof carbonara.
Time to dig in. I'm so excited. This is one of those dishes that uh waits for no man, woman, or child. You want to make sure you eat it while it's hot and ready to go. Make sure you get a little bit of everything in there. The sauce is silky and creamy 'cause I took the time to get everything mixed really well. The guanciale has some chew to it. We get a little bit of spiciness from that black peppercorn, and the mixture of both cheeses, sharp and kind of earthy, I think makes this carbonara one of the best versions you'll ever have. It's not complicated. Takes a little technique, a little bit of love, and just makes every part of you happy, uh, not only your tummy but your soul as well.
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