by Austin Butler
At Luciano Cucina Italiana in Rome, each bowl of Carbonara comes with a small card clipped to it by a clothespin and is accompanied by a golden fork. Inside the bowl is a high bird’s nest of pasta glistening with silky sauce and crisp cubes of guanciale, cured pork cheek. The presentation, while a little ostentatious, proudly centers Carbonara as the king not just of Roman cuisine, and of Luciano’s as well. The brilliance of Luciano’s recipe is in the technique. He uses a bain-marie or double boiler method to temper the eggs and cook the sauce. Then, he drizzles in guanciale fat to essentially make hollandaise with the rendered fat, cheese, and eggs, resulting in an airy, silky sauce that is really remarkable. If this all seems too fussy, feel free to proceed as you usually would with your preferred technique and with the same ingredients and measurements, but the reward is in the technique and thought Luciano has put into this quintessentially Roman dish. There’s a reason Romans call Luciano Il Re della Carbonara, the Carbonara King.
Guanciale is cured pork cheek or jowel (guancia) essential to Carbonara. Pancetta would be the best substitute. I would not recommend bacon, as it is heavily cured in sugar and lacks the pepperiness and gaminess of guanciale.
Ingredients:
280 g Morelli Pici or Makaira Chitarra Spaghetti
200 g Smoking Goose Guanciale diced into ½ inch cubes
30 g Cravero Parmigiano Reggiano grated
20 g Locateli Pecorino Romano grated
4 egg yolks from Locally Laid Eggs
2 g Mill Pepper Co. Ltd Black or Red Kampot Peppercorns
In a dry pan, toast the peppercorns until fragrant and then crush coarsely, preferably in a mortar and pestle.
In the same pan over medium heat, sear the guanciale before dropping the heat to low and letting it heat through so that it is crisp outside yet soft inside. Reserve the guanciale on a paper towel and about half the rendered fat.
In a pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta to about 2 minutes short of its prescribed time. I like to use Pici or Spaghettoni (thick spaghetti).
In a bowl large enough to sit over your pot of boiling water, combine the Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, pepper, and egg yolks together and whip into a thick paste. Place this bowl over your boiling water as the pasta cooks and beat, monitoring the heat and removing it if need be so that the egg doesn’t curdle. On for a few seconds and then off for a few seconds should work. You’ll notice the mixture begin to lighten in color and become glossy, creamy. Then slowly whisk in the reserved guanciale fat, as you would with clarified butter in a hollandaise sauce.
Off the heat, add the spaghetti with a little pasta water to the bowl with the sauce. Add the reserved guanciale. Toss to combine. Add more pasta water as needed to reach your desired consistency—I like to have the sauce look a little loose, knowing that it will tighten up as it cools.
Take a tongful of the Carbona and twist it inside the ladle to create a bird’s nest of pasta. Serve it in a warm bowl or plate before finishing with a dusting of Parmigiano Reggiano, pepper, and any guanciale that’s left in the pan. Buonissimo!
