4 Levels of Pasta Carbonara: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious
I'm Joe and I'm a level one Chef I'm Lorenzo and I'm a level two Chef I'm Saul I've been professional chef for the past 23 years today I'm making a classic carbonara real easy recipe it's pasta bacon eggs cheese everything that a growing boy needs pasta carbonara yes nothing little too crazy except a little red pepper flakes that I add don't come at me I'm making carbonada with the best ingredients Mexican food is Grandma's food Italian food it's Grandma's food you guys have the pasta we have the Masa [Music] coming first things first I need to fry up my bacon which I have right here Panetta is basically pork belly that's cured it's fancy I'm Filipino folks I pork bely everything the reason why I'm using wal is because it looks beautiful the flavor of of pork it's stronger it's richer and it's delicious I don't know what Guan chal is and I barely know what pett is so I'm using bacon because I do understand bacon bacon is just the easy way so if you like easy things go with the bacon just got a nice amount of fat that's what you want going to be using the fat in my sauce five six strips I'm going to remove this skin because it's very dry and you cook it it becomes really rubbery there's no science to anything that I do I'm just cooking with my heart and no skill the reason why I'm making big chunks because when I eat my but now I want to make sure I have basically like a croutons if you like bigger chunks I get it but the size that I have here is what I would do and then we're just going to toss it in the pan Brown it up we're going to cook it low and slowz we don't want burnt bacon carbonara needs this yummy decadent fatty element to be a true carbonara I know The Sweet Spot I know how I like it crispy but just when it gets crispy bacon I'm an expert I'm a level three bacon cook I would like this like Ultra crispy we want Aran chali to look like this not like this so we want to cook more of this fat so we're looking for something like that now this right here is the color I like to see before gets burnt Fat's still in there red pepper flakes now I know this is not what you're supposed to use in carbonara I'm not even putting that much the reason why I'm not seasoning this one chal is because it's full of flavor doesn't need anything else let ingredients speak for themselves I just like to add heat that's all all right at this point our pacheta looks pretty be sexy to me Panetta I'm not using petta I'm not Lorenzo I don't have the beautiful smile I'm going to put this on a paper towel right now so we can soak up a little bit of that excess oil wal Crouton are getting smaller and that's why I got them so thick cuz they lose weight I am done cooking my Panetta I'm actually going to make my carara in this pant so I'm removing the ones that are ready cuz I don't want them to burn I'm removing all these little burn bits cuz I don't want my pasta to be grainy and I am ready to make my pasta I'm keeping it real simple I got some store-bought spaghetti right here butini why cuz I'm a child and I love this tubular stuff can you see that it's like little straws the sauce goes inside so I'm going to use uh spaghetti pasta from Italy and why I know it's from Italy is because everything is in Italian rolling boil here don't want to burn myself you have to Salt your water I like to do a big pinch of salt I didn't add too much salt in the water cuz my two cheeses already has some salt in there I'm just going to pop it right in there mix them around make sure that they're separated I'm setting my timer 9 minutes because that's how long the Box said I like my pasta alen no not fully cooked I think if you throw a noodle against the wall and it sticks that's Al Dente throw it at the wall my noodle hit the wall and it bounced off so I got to give this another minute and then we're going to try it again and I'll keep on throwing noodles all day until it's right I'm going to take it out I don't like to get get it soft maybe I got lie to by big noodle but before I do the straining I'm going to take a couple cups OFA water and save it it's basically starchy water and it'll help make a beautiful viscous sauce once I got my pasta going this is where you're going to make the sauce the sauce is very simple the base of carbonara is eggs four whole eggs I'm using three egg yolks and one whole egg I'm going to use four egg yolks I have these perom eggs FR bra they're beautiful look at this color it's V so that means it's going to be rich of flavor the reason why I'm most only using egg yogs is because I think if you're using a whole eggs your pasta will be very eggy which is fine cuz you know you do whatever it makes you happy one whole egg because there's more moisture in the egg way and it makes my sauce more viscous well doing this make sure you also turn your pasta so it doesn't stick together without breaking it breaking the pasta is like breaking somebody's heart you don't do that back to the egg yolks we're going to make like a little Crema little bit of pepper at home I do not measure I eyeball everything I'm going to add a little bit moreo Romano then I would the paresan this is going to be somewhere between like a cream and a paste I'm just going to add a lot of pepper you got to use your heart you can't use a measuring cup cuz you might get it right now I'm going to add some of this pork fat and I'm also going to throw a little bit here my sauce is complete all right so this is what I'm looking for it's a little chunky kind of looks like grits but once the cheesee starts melting you get the pasta water in there you get the bacon grease in there this is going to turn into a nice smooth sauce so I'm going to take some of this pasta water and add it into my pan here I'm also going to add some of the water pasta into my egg yolks because I want to have a very creamy sauce without cooking it cuz we're going to have a nice creamy pasta without adding cream we do not add cream we're not making Alfredo I feel good right now and I'm just going to put all of these things together in the pan so I am about to pour my egg mixture right into this cool pan cool cuz I don't want my egg yolks to turn into scrambled eggs low and slow cuz I don't want this to be a spaghetti fatata but now that I'm saying that out loud I do but that's not the mission I am going to add in my butini pasta I want to make sure that pork fat mixing with the pasta so the pasta doesn't stick together and now look at the bacon so basically I'm just trying to get this sauce to kind of smooth out melt the cheese this is not science to me this is just going with the flow so add some pasta water the reason why I use water because the water has a lot of starch so it makes the sauce creamier s Mama does it but I don't know what it actually does okay now I'm going to add the egg and you have to go fast look how creamy this looks so even though my pan is cooled I've got some heat going on from my Bui Titi pasta it's still nice and warm that's what I'm using to kind of create this beautiful sauce and now I'm going to add my beautiful one chalen croutons this just has the look that I want it's not too thick it's not too runny when you use bacon you just get lost but in here you can see it you can see what you're eating add that texture of meat to my pasta black pepper it absolutely looks creamy I think it's beautiful the carbonara sets super fast so give me a plate I I'm ready to go now plating is not my specialty you see it's creamy without adding cream without adding butter you gual fat that's your butter you know cream at egg yolks that you cream I'm going to do a little twisty too it's a bowl of noodles so I don't know how fancy you can plate this for me it's just SLO it into a bowl pretty sprinkle a little bit more black pepper on there and now the gift from G one CH I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of cheese for the look peino Romano why not I love cheese you know me I'm going to garnish it with a little bit more one Charlie we're going to make a little Nest so the reason why I'm putting a beautiful egg yolk on top is because I want this pasta to look amazing and also add the flavor of egg this is my carbonara and this is my carbonara and this is my classic carbonara if I was at the Olive Garden and they put this in front of me I'd be like you nailed it this is the way it looked on the menu it's steaming slightly so I know it can't wait for me to take a bite and I'm going to keep marrying the egg yolk inside and this is what I was telling you have fun I'm ready what do you say ready that's perfect the sauce is creamy the bacon is crispy the noodles are soft I mean it's I did it yum the combination of the two cheeses Tangy creamy doesn't taste that eggy even though I put an egg yog on top but that egg it's another level I also have my red pepper flakes sorry out there but I like it a little spicy and then my fun bucatini on this creamy sauce hello that one Char when I was eating it with the pasta it was just like boom wake up Italians thank you for this amazing pasta wow carbonara is a quick yet decadent dish let's see how each of our Three Chefs made theirs Joe and Saul used dried spaghetti spaghetti is a hard thin string of pasta It's a small diameter solid tube extruded through a dye to maintain the round attribute Lorenzo made bucatini a noodle similar to Spaghetti but Hollow and larger in diameter commercial dried pasta is made by mixing flour and water under vacuum it's shaped and then dried in massive climate controlled dryers some as long as 320 ft Jo used bacon which comes from the belly of pork commercially it's cured with nitrites and sometimes smoked the sublime Aroma from frying bacon or any cured pork product is from a combination of hydrocarbons and aldah which one combined with nitrogen containing compounds like purine and purine gives the bacon that notable and craving inducing meaty Aroma the so used panchetta also from the belly of pork and cured similar to bacon but lower in water content and may have some extra flavorings added Saul used Guan chali made from pork gels similar to Panetta in processing but much higher in fat and more tender eggs are the star of this dish and because they're high in emulsifying compounds like fat phospholipids lethin and acetylcholine they blend together the other ingredients like cheese black pepper and pork fat all Three Chefs used the heat of the pasta and starchy pasta water to lightly cook the eggs making of creamy sauce Joe used whole eggs egg whites contain more water than the yolks and are mostly water soluble proteins that coagulate at a lower temperature than the proteins in the fatty yolks Lorenzo used mostly egg yolks which are higher in fat and emulsifiers intensifying the creaminess of his carbonara so only used egg yolks making his pasta super Sil next time you find yourself with pasta eggs cured pork and black pepper we hope you'll take some of these tips from our three fabulous chefs
