From the ingredients to the cooking technique, it is all delicate and requires a bit of skill. The ones I am cooking here is definitely not the most authentic Italina one since I don't use pancetta and cheese.
I was someone who thought carbonara sauce was made of milk. It turns out, according to classic recipe and the ones from Jamie Oliver, the creamy sauce is from mixture of egg and also parmesan cheese.
In this recipe, I am going to substitute parmesan cheese with cheddar cheese. According to Jamie Oliver, if you don't have eggs, you can simply use the pasta starch. But, I am still going to use egg in this recipe. Anyway, I will also show you the failed version of my carbonara.
Boil the pasta.
Crack and egg and put the cheddar cheese on it.
Chopped the smoked beef into tiny pieces and turn on the skilled low heat.
Add Pepper into the skillet and also the chopped smoked beef. Stir it well and add a clove of crushed garlic
Make sure the smoked beef is well-cooked. Add the spaghetti int o the mixture. Turn off the stove while adding the pasta water into the mixture.
Add the mixture of egg and cheese on it and stir well. You don't have to turn on the stove again.
Serve with crushed fresh pepper.
The egg becomes scrambled when I was mixing the meat while the stove was still on. So, never ever turn on the stove while you're mixing the meat and also the pasta water and the egg.
I was so happy when I see this but it's not quite the right sauce. You can see some of the egg turns out to be scrambled eggs.
This is the final result from the right sauce. The creaminess also depends on the starch from the pasta water and the amount of water that you put into the mixture.
You can also give generous amount of grated cheese. Mine was a bit less but it was alright.
And now, I am showing you the carbonara that I got form a restaurant. This was a carbonara that I sampled. I wanted to know how other people sell this meal. Turns out from this random sampling I did, it was horrible. I have often tried carbonara here and many of them contain milks in the sauce.
Maybe they are making the fusion of it? but after learning the classic recipe of carbonara, I am now convinced that many carbonara out there isn't the classic one.
I was disappointed with that restaurant carbonara. It was too watery and didn't taste quite right. But again, it was my random sampling, I think other places may/may not be better than that.
Mac