BA's Best Carbonara

It's like 11:00 a.m. in the test kitchen

which means we get to eat this for breakfast

and funny enough, this is like bacon, eggs,

and cheese in a pasta.

So, brunch pasta, breakfast pasta.

Brasta!

(lively music)

Today we are making bucatini carbonara

which is a classic Roman dish

that consists of five ingredients,

guanciale, Pecorino or Parmesan cheese,

eggs, black pepper, and pasta.

This is a tried and true recipe that we have,

it's BA's best carbonara.

And what's special about this recipe

is that we make it all in a bowl

which avoids any fear of scrambling your eggs,

which is the hardest part about making carbonara.

First things first, this is cured pork jowl.

It's sort of like bacon but it has a meatier

funkier flavor to it.

So, I'm gonna cut this into one third of an inch dice.

This is about a quarter pound.

Guanciale can be a little bit difficult to find

at your supermarket but if you do have access

to an Italian grocer or a butcher shop,

they'll probably have guanciale.

There's a lot of fat, which is gonna render out,

so although these look like large pieces of guanciale

they're gonna actually shrink down quite a bit.

Alright, we're gonna go fry our guanciale.

I have a pan preheating over medium low.

And I'm just gonna saute this guanciale

until it starts to brown.

Because it's fat, it's gonna brown quickly,

and tend to burn so that's why we keep it

over medium low heat, much like you would with bacon.

Okay.

A little bit longer but we're nice and golden brown here.

As you can see, a lot of fat has come out

and that's good because there's a lot of flavor there

and we're gonna save that later for creating our sauce.

(drum music)

So the rest of the sauce is gonna be built in this bowl

which means that I'm gonna add one whole egg

and then seven egg yolks along with the guanciale,

a little bit of the drippings, some pasta water,

and a good amount of Pecorino and Parmesan

and toss that to coat constantly

until it gets super glossy and luscious, so.

So, the guanciale has cooled down

I'm gonna add it straight into this bowl,

and then so we'll do one whole egg into the bowl.

And then, seven yolks.

So, some recipes will call for all egg yolks,

some recipes call for all whole eggs,

this is a mix of both.

I think that using mostly egg yolks

and then one whole egg creates a really rich sauce

but also allows it to loosen up a bit

from the egg white from that one egg,

and that makes it easier to coat the noodles.

Just go for our hands here.

Clean hands are the best way

to separate a white from a yolk.

We're gonna whisk this all together here.

We're not trying to incorporate any air into this,

we're not whipping the eggs,

just creating a homogeneous mixture.

So now we'll drop our pasta.

For this recipe we're gonna use bucatini.

Bucatini is great for carbonara because

if you look inside of it, it has little holes

running through the middle of these noodles.

So, it's like a spaghetti but it's tubular.

It'll soak up all the sauce

and it'll run through that little hole in the middle

and coat the outside, and it's kind of the perfect long,

what is this called, long noodle?

This is my favorite long pasta.

[Man] Favorite not short pasta.

My favorite not short pasta.

Let's go drop it in the water.

(gentle music)

Arguably the most important part of this

entire recipe is seasoning your pasta water.

So, I'm gonna put what looks like

a preposterous amount of salt into this boiling water.

If you don't properly season your pasta water

your sauce will be delicious

and your pasta will taste like nothing.

Dropping in the bucatini,

I'm gonna give it a little stir.

I am not cooking this pasta south of al dente

like you would with a lot of our recipes

because traditionally you'll cook your pasta

in your pasta water, transfer it into a skillet

with your meat sauce, your Bolognese, your tomato sauce,

and it'll keep cooking there.

With carbonara, it's important that you cook your pasta

all the way through in the pot

because it then gets removed from heat

and tossed into the egg mixture.

So there's no further cooking that's happening after this.

Alright, so it's been about six minutes.

I'm just gonna test one nood.

There's still a little ring of white in there.

I'm gonna let it go one minute more.

Before we drain the pasta,

I'm gonna grab about a half a cup

of pasta water, and save it,

and that's gonna go into our sauce.

This looks great.

Woop!

Okay we're gonna go into the bowl here

with our egg mixture right away,

and immediately start stirring.

And then I'm gonna add in my reserved guanciale fat

and a little bit of that pasta water to thin it out a bit.

Guanciale fat going in and here goes a little bit

of pasta water which is gonna help create

an emulsion in here and coat all of the noodles.

And then, Parmesan.

So, I'm doing a mix of Parmesan cheese and Pecorino.

Pecorino's pretty salty and Parm is a little bit

sweeter and nuttier, so I like to do a mix of them.

You could do just one or the other

and that would work fine as well.

It's kind of a personal preference thing.

I'm not adding everything at once.

Here goes a little more, if it gets super thick,

we can always add some more pasta water.

And then lastly, a (beep) ton of black pepper.

Can I say (beep) on the internet?

[Man] I don't think you can say (beep) on the internet.

A large amount of black pepper here

to cut through all of that creaminess.

Okay this is looking pretty good.

A little bit of salt but not too much,

the guanciale is really salty,

and here's a little trick of the trade.

Grab your pasta with your tongs,

let any danglers drop off,

and then swirling your bowl drop it in

for that next level nest.

It's a lot easier than trying to twist your tongs around.

A little additional cheese for good measure.

One grind of black pepper

and there you have it, silkiest ever carbonara.

So, let's see how my twirl is.

It's like bacon, egg, and cheese for breakfast.

Pasta for breakfast.

Pasta for brunch.

(slurps)