Giardino may be temporarily closed due to COVID-19, but its legendary Italian chef, Umberto Menghi, can still help you eat well at home. Here’s his recipe for Carbonara:
Carbonara is a very simple but tasty and warm pasta—a lovely winter dish. First of all, it is a pasta that doesn’t take a lot of sauce. You are using pancetta so you don’t even need oil, because there is natural oil. It is also cured, so full of flavour. Then, you toss it with an egg yolk and shave some parmesan. Most importantly, the pasta has to be al dente. Make sure to keep the pasta a little wet. Toss it with a crush of pepper. Enjoy it fresh.
Ingredients
250 grams pancetta (cut into bite-sized chunks)
8 ounces spaghettini
2 tablespoons of Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 egg yolks
Crushed black pepper and salt (to taste)
Method
Pan-fry pancetta; make sure most of the fat is extracted from it in the cooking process.
Boil water in a large pot. Make sure it’s bubbling energetically before dropping in the spaghettini. Add salt to water, and let cook until it’s al dente.
Pull spaghettini out and put into a separate pan.
Mix egg yolks with parmesan and a few tablespoons of salted pasta water. Add into pan, along with pancetta. Add more pasta water as needed to make it saucy. There should be enough sauce to just coat the pasta.
Before serving, garnish with lots of crushed black pepper, and season with salt as needed.
Enjoy with friends and a nice bottle of wine.
From the Archives: This story was originally published on December 1, 2017. Try more delicious recipes.
