The Meatless Carbonara You Never Knew Existed

pasta a la carbonara one of the four Roman pastas and one of the most famous pastas in the world but did you know that it's actually not that old of a recipe in fact there is a published recipe that predates carbonara by almost 100 years that uses almost the same exact method minus the guanciale and it's a recipe you're going to want to know how to make and we're going to make it right now so let's just jump right into it so before we talk a little history let's prep a few ingredients first we need to deal with the cheese I got pecorino Romano a sheep's milk cheese it's saltier and it's sharper and is traditionally used in the four Roman pastas although nowadays they use Parmigiano-Reggiano to balance out the pecorino parmesan is a cow's milk cheese it's nuttier and sweeter so it balances out and we need about 60 to 70 grams of each cheese grated finely like dust or I'd say about half a cup of each cheese you can use all pecorino but sometimes it's just a little salty and too much in my opinion I like to go about equal parts pecorino parmigiano you can find a ratio that works for you next up we've got a clove of garlic and some parsley I just want to give the garlic a smash we're gonna just use it to infuse some butter and then we're going to tear off some of that parsley and I want to chop it really fine we're going to use it in some bread crumbs as well as the pasta itself and now let's talk about a little context to this recipe in Naples there's a pasta called kacho uova which directly translates to cheese and egg and it was first documented in ippolito calvicantes 1839 Neapolitan cookbook the theoretical practical kitchen which references some of Italy's most famous dishes including the first documentation of pasta with tomato sauce the concept of storing cooked tomatoes in a hermetically sealed jar in order to preserve it essentially canned tomatoes eggplant parmigiano and Cacho iwova a dish that has lard and cheese emulsified into egg and if we look when the first recipe for carbonara was published it doesn't actually really appear until the 1940s and was first published in a newspaper in 1950 called La stampa describing the dish beloved by American servicemen stationed abroad the mid-40s was at the heart of the Allied liberation of Rome it was a war-torn country and food was scarce but the American servicemen had K rations non-perishable military-issued food that they would have whenever they needed and in that was powdered egg and bacon and some believe they found a way to take those ingredients and incorporate them into a pasta creating what was essentially the birth of a carbonara however it's not hard to imagine that that was simply an evolution of a technique they had already known in the Neapolitan Cacho iwova that already existed is that to say Italians didn't eat carbonara Before the War of course not maybe they were already making carbonara who knows but what I do know is kachoe wove was documented first and I don't think it's a stretch to say that on some level carbonara is simply an evolution of it but honestly who really cares it's delicious so let's jump into it we're gonna use the same Technique we use for carbonara for this recipe it's going to start with a large heat proof bowl and we're going to crack three eggs into it then we're gonna add about three quarters of the pecorino and three quarters of the parmesan cheese into the egg mixture then we're just gonna mix the remaining cheeses for garnish later a little salt a little black pepper and then we're gonna whisk the egg with the cheese until we create a nice creamy mixture that is also slightly thickened now we're gonna get a pot of salted water up to a boil since I'm only cooking for one I'm gonna use a smaller one that'll fit that bowl that we cracked the eggs in and we're gonna cook this like a double boiler but first we need to infuse some butter with some garlic traditionally in a carbonara the guanciale fat is a huge component of flavor in the dish we're gonna use butter here and just Infuse it with that garlic we're gonna use this to beti pasta it's like large ditalini and when I'm just measuring pasta for myself I just take a bowl and just kind of measure it out in there knowing that they should double in size so that's probably just a little bit more than enough for one person and it ends up being about a third of the box now the Butter's melted and that garlic is being infused into it for a little bit more flavor I want to take that butter to a brown butter so start to Brown those milk solids which are those darker pieces you see floating and that's where a lot of the flavor is and once we've got a nice brown butter and that garlic is infused you can discard the piece of garlic and pour half of the butter out and Reserve that for the sauce I'm Gonna Keep the other half of that butter onto the pan I'm going to turn the heat on to about a medium medium high heat and add about two handfuls of dried breadcrumbs I'm gonna use that infused garlic butter to toast the bread crumbs until they're nicely browned and crispy keep them moving so none of the bread crumbs burn and once I see them sort of change color a little bit and darken and I've got them a nice golden brown I'm going to toss a little bit of that parsley we chopped directly into the breadcrumbs saving some for later then I'm gonna get those bread crumbs out of the pan and let them dry so now our water is up to temperature we can go ahead and add our pasta I'm gonna set a timer for nine and a half minutes give the pasta a stir and then we can put the bowl of eggs on and start to allow them to warm up essentially making a Savory zabayone a zabayone is just eggs and sugar cooked in a double boiler and we're just doing that with eggs and cheese be careful if the water boils too hard you might turn it into scrambled eggs so you want to keep that to a light simmer the pasta will still cook and hydrate but we're just going to whisk turning the bowl on top of that simmering water until the cheese starts to melt and the Egg Smooths out and thickens and I like to keep it on top of the water for about 30 seconds and then off the water for about 30 seconds alternating between the two to make sure that we don't overcook the eggs and turn them into scramble the bowl shouldn't really be touching the water but if it does just pay extra care and Alternate between on and off the water in Faster intervals then we want to whisk in that melted and cooled butter and then we can continue to whisk off to the side off the heat and allow that pasta to finish cooking we don't really need to pull the pasta early we really want to pull it when it's perfectly al dente and then you want to shut the heat off on the water that'll make sure that the sauce doesn't get too hot fish out the pasta and then transfer it directly into the sauce then we can get that bowl right on top of that simmering water and finish up the pasta I switch over to a spatula and I just stir and work the pasta with the sauce releasing that starch thickening up the sauce and marrying the sauce with the pasta finish it with that chopped parsley and you should see the sauce thicken and start to coat the pasta very nicely if it's too tight add a little bit more pasta water but we're kind of going for a risotto consistency so I want that pasta to be able to flow nicely if it's a little loose feel free to just throw in some more of that cheese and mix that in and it should tighten back up to a really nice creamy consistency and then we can get it plated I'm just gonna go for a real big Mound right into a little shallow bowl then right on top of that we're going to sprinkle on a good amount of those breadcrumbs this is optional but you can add a little bit of lemon zest just to brighten up the entire dish a little bit of that cheese mixture on top and then then a little Final Touch of parsley and at the end of the day there's no definitive answer to what happened hundreds of years ago but it's fun to speculate and regardless this dish is delicious and you need to try it it's such a beautiful thing recipes gonna be down in the description that's all I have today I'll see you next time until then take care of yourself and go feed yourself [Music]

Channel: NOT ANOTHER COOKING SHOW

Views: 227,320

Keywords: cacio e uova recipe, pasta cacio e uova alla napoletana, carbonara, roman carbonara, meatless carbonara, the food freak, stephen cusato, not another cooking show, Rome, Ippolito Cavalcanti, the theoretical-practical kitchen, pasta recipe, italian food

Id: yJKFNr6xwYg

Length: 7min 10sec (430 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2022