(egg cracking) (egg sizzling) - Hello, welcome to SORTEDfood. This is Chefs Versus the Internet. And today it's all about carbonara. (upbeat music) Representing the chefs here at Sorted it's Ben Ebbers Ebbrell. And today representing
the community on Reddit, It's our most normal of normal's, Barry. - I'll take it as a compliment. - They're each gonna knock up a recipe using the tips that they've collated and then our other normal Mike is going to blind taste test both to see which one he prefers. Boys start cooking in 3, 2, 1 carbonara. - I'm gonna start with the
thing that stood out most to me in the Reddit comments,
was the choice of meat. Usually at home, I
would just use pancetta, apparently guanciale is where it's at. It's traditional, it's cured pork cheek and it's already coated
in delicious pepper, so it has all the flavours necessary to make the ultimate carbonara. And I cut a sliver of it
and chop it into big chunks into a cold pan and let the fats render. - The internet and the Reddit community absolutely nailed the tradition. So I'm breaking a few rules
to show you how in the UK at Sorted we can get pretty
much 95% the way there with a few cheats. That said, pancetta is
another cured pork belly that is often used in Italy
and can be used for carbonara. It's just that the guanciale, the jowl, is probably more traditional. - So from the off you're splitting off in
different directions. - Look at that! This is why it's so
important to render down. And that's why you don't need any oil in the pan to start off with because, well, look at that. - So whilst the difference
of cured pork product is a thing in my recipe
I'm actually starting with one of the spices, the black pepper. One of the key ingredients in a carbonara. I'm taking black pepper
corns and I'm just toasting and roasting them off in a dry pan. At which point I will grind them up. Black pepper was like an iconic
spice in the Roman empire. And it's the reason
that the dish from Rome is also side by side with
something like cacio e pepe. - Okay, time to get my pasta on the go. Hot water into a pan with a tonne of salt. I think it's like 10 grammes per litre is what you need in there. The other tip I've got
was to warm up your bowl at this point with some hot water as well. Because a warm bowl is important, 'cause when you put the
sauce into it later on, you don't just seize up in a cold bowl. - Oh, good tip. - Not mine, theirs. - In the chef's corner, also agree a warm plate is important. We've got a plate warmer. - Oh! Not all of us have plate
warmers at home Ben, or augers. - Barry, are they paperclips? - This is where Reddit surprised me again. I thought carbonara had like relatively normal spaghetti
in it, but apparently not. You need spaghettino. Which is really long pasta. So that would be normal pasta, that is spaghettino. You want the pasta to get
coated in an amazing sauce and you want the slurp to be the longest slurp you've ever had. - This is proper "Lady
and the Tramp" pasta. - [Barry] Yeah sure why not. - Like Barry, I'm also
adding my pork pieces into a relatively low heat
pan and gently bringing it up. How long are you cooking your pasta for? - About seven minutes? But to be honest again, never
cook it just until al dente. - About seven minutes. - Mhm I heard that, yeah. - But I'm not putting the timer on. I just know when pasta's done. Onto the sauce, I'm going for two eggs and one egg yolk for extra creaminess. And again, use the
finest eggs you can get. Cause you want that vibrant
yellow colour as well. - Ebbers what you're doing with your eggs? Freezing them? - I know it's getting a bit late in life. (all laughing) So I'm also using three eggs for my double portion of pasta. I'm doing two egg yolks and one egg. So a really subtle difference. For me, if you go just egg yolk, it can be quite a claggy result. So by adding in the
whole egg, it is looser. So that we can focus on
the subtle differences in method between the two, I'm gonna let Barry crack on
with his, then I'll do mine. But in the meantime, I'm gonna
grate two different cheeses, pecorino, and parmesan, equal
quantity of each into my eggs. And whisk it up. - My sauce is ready to go. I've got my pecorino romano, and my eggs and black
pepper in there, mixed up. I've drained some of the fat from my guanciale into a bowl. I'm gonna add a little bit
of that fat into my egg mix. And I'm also gonna try to melt
my parmesan very slightly. Over, it's a bummer isn't it really, over this for a little bit
before I take my pasta out. I want it to break off as I pinch it. When I bite it, have a slight bite. The pasta done. Out of the water. Doesn't matter if you
carry some of that water over into the pan. And this pan has been off the heat as well for the last minute or so. So it's cooling down, it's not piping hot. - So no colander, you're
not draining the pasta. - No, the water is a good thing. It helps loosen up the sauce later on. And I can always a bit more
water later on as well. Mixy, mixy mixy. The other tip people are
screaming at me saying, do not put it in a hot pan otherwise it definitely will scramble. So you wanna let it cool
down, ever so slightly. And then keep it moving, so
it doesn't scramble on impact. Now we're going in, I hope. - [Host] It's got a good slop to it. - Good slop. Pan is a good temperature,
so I'm happy with that. Yeah, that's perfect, look at that! Let's get rid of my hot water. Hot, hot, hot. - It was hot about 10 minutes ago. - And then next trick is a ladle. - Bit of pecarino to finish. And its as simple as that. - [Host] Beautiful. - [Announcer] The
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up all the fresh food you buy. Once you bought your ingredients, we take you step by
step through the cooking with written and audio guides. - [Computer voice] Fry for
seven to eight minutes. - [Announcer] Throw in automatic timers, smartly placed cues, to wash up as you go. And twists from other users, so you can adapt recipes
to suit your tastes. And you can join the thousands
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complete just one meal pack. And you'll see the
difference for yourself. - Ebbers taking any tips from Bars, or are you still confident
in what you were doing? - Very, very similar, but I'm
gonna show you a few things that we think make it super simple. If you haven't got the knack
to do it the traditional way, we're gonna get there with
a few like simpler cheats. Some safety nets. The first one being I'm gonna cook it in about five centimetres or so of heavily salted water
in a large frying pan. That way all of the strands of spaghetti can go in all at the same time. And what you don't get is
those bits sticking out that don't quite cook. They cook at 10 or 15% less
than the rest of the pasta. - That's weird. That's not right is it? - What will also happen is
because there is less water, you'll actually get more starch into it. Which means when you make
your sauce at the end, you get even more of that richness. Every pasta cook will
tell you to make sure it's rapidly boiling as well. I'm not gonna bother because
if you're cooking quickly then actually all you need
to do is rehydrate the pasta and then cook it. You don't necessarily
need the absolute heat from the very first second. - No, I'm not comfortable. I'm not comfortable standing
next to you, in that kitchen. I'm gonna stand here from now on. 'Cause that's, you've
gone too far there Ben. - So Ebbers, what you haven't explained is what pasta are you using? - I'm using dried spaghetti. So there is also this perception
that fresh pasta is better. I think for some things 100% it is, for this dish, no. Use a good dried pasta. In the grand scheme of this dish, I think spend the money on
quality eggs and quality cheese, and quality pancetta. The pasta can be pretty basic. Don't be shy of the pasta water. You also want a good amount
of it in with your pasta. That is well seasoned and gives
you all of the safety net. Now, as you're mixing with the pork fat and making that wonderful kind of emulsion around every single strand. Take from a hot pan into your sauce - Oh, oh, oh, oh. - If you need to cook it out,
you can always go back in. But then over a very
low heat to cook it out. And don't be afraid of
potentially even more pasta water. - Oh really? Bones. - Ebbers likes it sloppy. (Barry laughs) - Pasta of the people,
I'm not swirling mine, I'm just whacking it on the plate. Don't over garnish, but
a little more parmesan. A little more pecarino. And a little more fresh black pepper. That's mine. - [Host] Beautiful. - The safety net of a carbonara. (intense music) - Right, Mike in front of you, you have two bowls of carbonara. What we'd like you to do, is
blind taste test both of them and tell us which one you prefer. - Okay, I'm gonna call this A, because of right to left
as you guys are seeing it. (Mike sniffs) Instantly cheese, cheese,
cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese. Mm. Oh, that is delicious. The pasta has a lovely
bite and feel very peppery. That is tasty. I'm getting cheesy. I'm getting saucy. Sometimes if you don't
do a carbonara right it's almost a bit dry. I'm getting the silkiness. I'm getting a bacon fatty flavour. Oh, that pepper is punch-alicious. - Move on to B. See if there's any differences. (Mike grunts) (group laughing) - Oh, the pasta is even more al dente. Oh, it's different, creamier. Much creamier, cheesier, less peppery. In A the bacon-y fattiness goes throughout the entire of the dish. Whereas B, you kind of need to
get the meat in the mouthful to experience the true flavour. And then it's completely different, right? It's absolutely delicious. Slightly creamier and saltier. Slightly more subtle and the
pepper is amazing in that one. This is so hard. They are both incredible. - What I would say, great palate. - Really good palate.
- He's picked out pretty much all the differences. - Yeah. - [Ben] For good and for bad. - I think my favourite is A. - Remove your blind fold. (dramatic music) - Oh, they look the... Oh no, this is thicker. - So Mike, I can reveal you picked A, and A was cooked by... Let's wait for the
tense music to build up. Camera shots back and forth. The chefs. - Well played. - One for Ebbers. - The challenge here
is it's not necessarily the most traditional,
but arguably the easiest- - I was baffled-
- in the UK. - When I picked that I genuinely thought that was the normal's plate. Which is where I was like, oh, we are given another
one to the normals. Honestly, both exceptional. That was my favourite. You need to grab a bowl and get in. Come on in. - Thank you very much. - You got half and half in each bowl. - Okay. - See what you think guys. - Actually, that pepper is everything. You've got that warmth. Toasting your pepper comes off and using a pestle and mortar. Nice little touch. - They are two very good dishes. Well, as someone who's previously started an international incident based on cooking a traditional dish- - Oh no!
- in another country, you'll notice that I
haven't offered an opinion on which one my favourite is. So there are three
British idiot's opinions on what makes the best carbonara, but we'd love to know from you. Are they right? Would you go traditional? Would you use Ebber's tips? Would you use your own? Comment down below, let us know. - And we'll put the recipes
in the link down below, so you can go and try
the details of either one or combine the two or do it your way. - Do you think that maybe
this was the best one? It was just 'cause Barry made it. - It could have been that. But I hope you-
- Comment down below. (Mike laughing)
Let us know. - Mike usually avoids
carbs in normal life. - And cheese. - No, not since I got married mate. - [Barry] Oh, okay, that's what it is. - Nah, she's locked in. (group laughs)
Holy Crap! They used my suggestion on screen!
Definitely think Barry was keen to avoid paella gate 2:0 with the comments they selected.
Ebbers ideas with the sauce was interesting I might try that next time. Barry's plating was great though!
As I said when they asked us I said put all the pepper in the dish so I probably would have agreed with Mike.
I thought the trick of putting the fat back into the sauce before adding back was a great idea. I see what Mike meant by the flavour of the pork being throughout without the need for actual pieces. I'll give that a try next time!
Looks like Ebbers and the food team took a lot of inspiration from J Kenji Lopez-Alt and AlexFrenchGuyCooking. His recipe & method was very similar to both of their Cacio e Peppe recipies, but with added pancetta.
Great video. I think I prefer Ebbers method but with guanciale.
I think Barry's was probably to al dente
lol I am guessing the subtitles are auto-generated. Bain-Maire? Or...
https://imgur.com/FHriXAQ
I really liked this episode:
My one suggestion for improvement depends on having another chef, or food team magic - have a third "Authentic" dish that goes all out, so you can compare Authentic vs Community vs Cheat. Heck, I would be fine with having the recipe/demo video for the authentic one be behind a SortedClub paywall, even though I am not a member.
A lot of cherry picking from the comments to make the "reddit" dish as close to what the internet has decided is an authentic carbonara as possible. I'd have far preferred for Ebbers to do a chefy "authentic" version and Barry to take more of the suggestions from the thread here and go a bit wild.
Bit of a disappointment of an episode if I'm honest, if they'd billed it as chef v normal carbonara battle, that would have been fine. Or traditional vs easy carbonara battle, again fine. But it feels like they'd already decided on how they were doing it and then chose comments specifically to justify their choices, which makes it kind of pointless to have brought in the reddit thread at all.
i'm having a rather blah type of monday, and then sorted used my suggestion on their video! what a silly thing to make me happy, but aw, thanks guys! not all of us have plate warmers, ben! hahah