Day 5: Tagliatelle carbonara

May 16, 2020

It had to be done.

Anecdote

This is the boy who cooks' recipe. He seems to be able to make the sauce without turning it into scrambled eggs, so I leave that to him.

If you are not making fresh tagliatelle (we used a pasta machine here), feel free to skip to the carbonara sauce section. It pairs well with bucatini or linguine, any long pasta is fine.

Ingredients

Tagliatelle:

  • 200g 00 flour

  • 2 eggs (ideally room-temp)

Carbonara sauce:

  • 100g cubed pancetta

  • 30g parmesan

  • 2 large egg yolks and 1 large egg

Recipe

Serves two

Tagliatelle dough:

  1. Make a well with the flour in a big bowl and crack the eggs in. Start beating and slowly incorporating more egg into the flour

  2. Knead well until smooth (5-10 mins) and then rest in clingfilm wrap for 30 mins

  3. Set up the pasta machine

  4. Divide dough into four pieces and work with one at a time, leaving the rest wrapped in clingfilm

  5. Roll the dough into a rectangle and feed through the machine, starting with the thickest setting (flour generously)

  6. When you have a long sheet, divide into two. To make the long individual noodles, flour the sheet generously again, fold it onto itself a couple of times and then cut it with a sharp knife (spacing depends on how wide you want them to be)

  7. Unravel and flour generously again

Carbonara sauce:

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil

  2. Grate your parmesan. Set aside a quarter of the cheese for sprinkling on top

  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the 2 egg yolks and whole egg. Stir in the grated cheese that you didn't set aside. Add several cracks of black pepper and set aside

  4. In a pan, brown the pancetta over a low heat, letting it render out lots of fat, stirring occasionally until crisp and golden brown. Separate the meat from the fat

  5. Pour fat into the mixing bowl along with the eggs and give it a thorough mix

  6. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until ready, about 90 seconds if using the fresh pasta

  7. Take 1/4 of a cup of pasta water from the pot and add to the egg mixture. Quickly whisk to combine the liquids, then add the pasta to the bowl

  8. Very quickly, to avoid the eggs cooking too much, toss the pasta in the sauce, ideally with tongs. This will create a thick, glossy sauce. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit more pasta water and continue to toss

  9. Season to taste, then add most of the pancetta to the bowl (reserving some for garnish) and give it one last toss to combine

  10. Divide the pasta between bowls, sprinkling the remaining pancetta and parmesan over the top