This is the season when I take advantage and eat pasta without any guilt whatsoever with the excuse that my body will take care of burning the additional calories due to the cold weather and my ballet class (but I haven’t been attending regularly, oopsie!) Anyhow, since this is probably the dish I am mostly disappointed at when I go to Italian restaurants, I decided to prepare it a few days ago at home, since they will add heavy cream to the sauce, and to my knowledge, carbonara sauce does not have it in Italy. The creaminess is achieved through the egg yolks, the pasta cooking liquid, and the pasta itself.
Hence, I share this dish because it’s one of my Winter favorites, and since I’ve heard people say that once you convert to eating fresh pasta you can’t go back, and I truly believe it, here is the recipe I prepare at home. I know, however, that there may be many fresh pasta recipes out there.
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Pasta:
- 100 g (½ cup) Italian-style ’00’ flour
- 100 g (½ cup) semolina flour
- 2 (2) eggs
- 150 ml (1 cups) olive oil
- Bench flour and/or semolina to manipulate the fresh pasta dough
For the Carbonara Sauce:
- 200 g (2 cups) Parmesan cheese, grated
- 150 g (1 cups) bacon, diced
- 4 (4) egg yolks
- 1 (1) whole egg
- Salt and pepper
- 1 pinch (1 pinch) nutmeg , *optional
To Prepare
For the Pasta:
- In a large bowl make a well with the semolina flour and the Italian-style flour. Add the eggs, and the olive oil to the center of the well and incorporate all of the ingredients working from the inside out being careful not to over work the dough. Use your hands.
- Shape it into a ball and put some plastic wrap around it. Let it rest for around 30 minutes.
- Once it has rested, flatten it out a little with the rolling pin, and then start to flatten the dough with the help of a pasta machine. Flatten the dough out going from number 0 to whichever thickness you desire (I flatten only to number 4) and then cut it into spaghetti. To avoid the spaghetti to stick together, set it in a sheet tray with some semolina and/or all-purpose flour. It'll help the spaghetti keep its texture and form.
For the Carbonara Sauce:
- Sauté the bacon previously cut into small pieces in a sauté pan. I highly recommend a large pan or a medium saucepan, since you will have to add the pasta later on in the preparation.
- In a bowl, mix in the egg yolks, the egg, the freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and the pepper. Whisk it until the sauce becomes creamy.
- Cook the pasta previously cut into spaghetti in a pot with salted boiling water. Since it’s fresh pasta, please remember that the cooking time will be much shorter than if the pasta would come out of a box. Therefore, in the case of spaghetti it will be of just a few seconds.
- Whenever the pasta has been cooked, add it into the sauté pan where the bacon is getting fried and sauté the spaghetti for a moment.
- Add some of the cooking liquid as well as the egg and cheese sauce. Mix it all and verify seasoning with salt and pepper should it be necessary. You may want to add a little nutmeg as well.
- Lastly, serve the dish and sprinkle some additional cheese and/or freshly ground pepper. I hope it’s dreamy, since I find quite a bit.
