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America has a longstanding obsession with carbonara, an iconic long-strand pasta preparation from the Lazio region of Italy, where it is a Roman specialty. The classic preparation involves just a handful of ingredients, but we tend to see all kinds of additional ingredients in many American versions. Chef and Food Network regular, Marc Murphy, told Mashed at the 2024 New York City Wine & Food Festival, “I’ve been trying to teach America how to make [carbonara] properly.” As a professional chef who was born in and spent time in Italy, he knows his way around Italian cuisine. The American carbonara trend that really grinds his nerves involves serving the pasta with a raw egg yolk on top.
He vented his thoughts, saying, “The raw egg on top, I don’t know who f***ing came up with the idea.” While raw eggs are involved in creating traditional carbonara, the yolk garnish has nothing to do with it in Italy. True carbonara inspired by the Roman dish is made with eggs, guanciale (cured pork jowl), Pecorino Romano cheese, and ground black pepper. The guanciale is crisped in a pan, but the beaten eggs are heated and “cooked” by the heat of the hot pasta. When everything is tossed together, the sauce should be rich and silky and coat each strand of pasta. Cooks need to work quickly to ensure that the eggs don’t scramble and the cheese doesn’t clump. The color throughout should be pale yellow to peachy (depending on the color of the egg yolks), but traces of bright, raw yolk shouldn’t be spotted anywhere, in Murphy’s opinion.
The many twists on carbonara
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Some chefs love to take creative liberties with traditional recipes, even recipes like carbonara, which many will agree is perfect as it is. But, whether it’s for sheer experimentation, to make them more simple to prepare, or because ingredients are hard to come by, recipe variations happen all the time. For example, guanciale isn’t necessarily easy to find all over the United States. Because of this, many carbonara recipes will call for either pancetta (unsmoked cured pork belly) or bacon. Using bacon largely alters the flavor of the dish because it’s smoked. But even Italian experts like Giada De Laurentiis sub the breakfast meat in their own versions of the dish. Others use Parmesan cheese instead of Pecorino Romano. If you go this route, it’s worth using the real deal Parm.
If you make traditional carbonara correctly, the ingredients transform into a wonderfully creamy, silky sauce, but many chefs supplement with heavy cream or butter to enrich the dish. Whatever you do, keep your pasta water, as it is unbeatable as a sauce enhancer. Other non-traditional flavorings might include white wine, garlic, and lemon zest. Adding a green ingredient also seems to appeal to many people, whether it’s for color, flavor, texture, or all three. Peas, chopped parsley, asparagus, and artichokes are all viable. Whether these substitutions are right or wrong is highly subjective. Even topping the pasta with raw egg yolk has a fan base despite Marc Murphy’s thoughts on the matter. If you’re pro-yolk, you might want to consider using pasteurized eggs to avoid potential foodborne illness.
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Dining and Cooking