Creamy pasta dishes are an elemental feature of Australia’s regrettable food history. Once, we did not know there was any other sort. They usually featured mushrooms and ham or bacon, sometimes chicken or smoked salmon, sometimes avocado, the very idea of which should make any reasonable stomach turn.
The dishes had names like fettuccine boscaiola, creamy chicken and pesto pasta, or creamy linguine with prawns. They were (and are still) a food court, bain marie staple. In restaurants, waiters arrived at the table with pepper grinders the size of augers and waved them over plates of pasta swimming in cream. There was always cream. On the rare occasions there wasn’t cream there was cheese, multiple cheeses, three cheeses, four cheeses, blue, brie, cheddar, parmesan. Sometimes multiple cheeses and cream.
And amidst all of that there was spaghetti alla carbonara, a fine Italian dish that had been interbred with wacky Australian ideas of Italian, until it bore no resemblance to its proper self and became something else altogether.
Even today, should you browse one or other Australian recipe website, you’ll trip over multiple perversions: sausage carbonara, garlic-bread spaghetti carbonara, turkey carbonara, turkey carbonara vol-au-vents, carbonara with kale, vegan carbonara and the oxymoronic “healthier spaghetti carbonara”. On one site, “Australia’s top-rated spaghetti carbonara” lists thickened cream in its ingredients.
It’s time to lay down the law: the fact is, unviolated, unbastardised carbonara does not have cream, thickened or otherwise. It is, in fact, an alchemic form of bacon and eggs, except the bacon ideally should be in the form of guanciale – fatty pork jowl that has been brined and then aged as it air-dries – and the eggs should be the finest you can buy from the happiest hens.
“All the best restaurants serving carbonara in Rome have their favourite egg producer,” says Stefano “Steve” Manfredi, a Sydney chef whose name is synonymous with excellent modern Italian food.
Carbonara, from the Italian word carbonaro (charcoal burner), is believed to have originated in the mid-20th century in the Lazio region, of which Rome is the capital, as sustenance for charcoal burners.
“Carbonara is a classic example of Italian cooking: very few ingredients but the ingredients need to be of a really high quality,” says Manfredi.
Despite carbonara’s generally accepted short list of ingredients there is scope for variation. “You have to understand that Italy is a country of 60 million individuals and they don’t agree on anything, especially to do with food,” says Manfredi, who name drops the Roman restaurants Roscioli and Armando al Pantheon as two places serving exemplary carbonara.
One chef cooking carbonara might use spaghetti and another the wider spaghettoni, or a tube pasta such as mezze maniche. Some use whole eggs, some just yolks, while others use a combination of whole eggs and extra yolks.
There are adjustments in the cheese used: sometimes it’s the strongly flavoured sheep’s milk cheese pecorino, sometimes the sweeter parmesan, sometimes a mix of the two. Some chefs might use the more easily available, often saltier pancetta (salt-cured, unsmoked pork belly) instead of guanciale, but it will look nothing like the rolled slices of pancetta you’ll find in supermarket deli packs. Instead it should resemble bacon in appearance – thin long slices with layers of fat carved off a slab.
A survey of recipes from some of the maestros of Italian cooking reveals other variations. Some, including the late Italian-born cooking doyenne Marcella Hazan, Jamie Oliver and Italian chef Gennaro Contaldo, cook pancetta in olive oil flavoured with a lightly mashed garlic clove which is removed before serving. Hazan adds white wine. Contaldo adds a deep tan, lush chest hair and a thick gold chain. Sometimes parsley appears as a concluding gesture.
According to Manfredi, the success of the dish depends on the cook’s skill in binding the guanciale fat with the egg and cheese and some of the pasta cooking water. The pasta shouldn’t be gluggy and the strands should all be coated with the sauce. The egg shouldn’t be scrambled. A little bit of glossiness in appearance is lovely and an indication you have “mounted” (bound) the sauce and pasta together. If a slightly thicker sauce is desired, more egg yolk and/or more cheese can be used.
My kitchen experimentation has led me to conclude that the ideal carbonara should have five ingredients only (pasta, guanciale, egg, black pepper, cheese) combined with a little of the pasta cooking water, and that guanciale is a wicked and addictive gift from the gods. You can find guanciale at specialty butchers and delis, including Pino’s Dolce Vita Fine Foods in Sydney and King and Godfree and Meatsmith in Melbourne.
The recipe I have had the most success with is one from the late Antonio Carluccio (see a slightly adapted version below; I prefer mine slightly richer and omit the olive oil he fries the guanciale in, use a little more guanciale and cheese and add an extra egg yolk).
I also plan to adhere to food writer Mei Chin’s instructions about carbonara: “It can be enjoyed at any hour of the day, though the ideal time is dawn, after a long night of revelry.”
Spaghetti Carbonara
Serves 2
220g spaghetti or spaghettoni
40g guanciale (pork jowl) thinly sliced
2 eggs
1 extra egg yolk
70g parmesan cheese (or aged pecorino) freshly grated
Freshly ground black pepper
Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water until al dente.
Meanwhile, place the guanciale in a cold pan and heat, allowing the fat to render (become liquid). Fry until crisp but be careful not to let it brown too heavily.
Lightly beat the eggs and extra yolk in a large bowl with the grated cheese and pepper. When the pasta is ready, drain, reserving a little cooking water, and add to the pan with the guanciale and its fat.
Drip in a little cooking water (being careful not to add too much) so the mixture coats the pasta. Take off the heat. Allow to cool slightly. Then add the egg and cheese mixture. Stir to coat the pasta and serve immediately. Sprinkle with parmesan.
The Link LonkSeptember 22, 2020 at 12:32AM
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Pasta and cream may be an Australian classic – but it has no place in a proper carbonara - The Guardian
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