Pierre's Spaghetti Carbonara

As I am writing this post, I am sipping an amazing pot of green tea in Pinglin tea farm, Taiwan. It has been an amazing culinary journey for me.

Today I am going to share you one of my signature dish that had won many hearts in the past. It's just a Spaghetti Carbonara, but done with my standard of perfection. I have actually blind tested this recipe in Milan and Sicily with 27 families with traditional Italian home dweller and psychotic-ly awesome kitchen grandmas, and won with ratio of 21 to 6. Of course, it's been featured many times in the hotels I've worked in- priced AU$30 or more in 2004. So trust me ay ;).To reach the bar, I wanted to have the whole cooking process in video because there are so many countless simple-but-essential techniques I don't want anyone to miss and mess.

Here are the four essentials of my Spagh:
1. Eggs, my sauce is 70-90% eggs. So get the best, I repeat, the best eggs you can find. Try chasing that pregnant Chicken around! (Seriously, I've tried this and it was brutally tasty!)
2. Cheese. I only use the Cheese from Italy. They are pricey. They are hard to find, especially in Asia. There is no substitute, to put it clearly, would you like to have a dog's paw to replace your accidentally amputated finger? You 'can' adjust the quantity and variety of the Cheese from my selection of Parmagiano Reggiano, Pecorino (Sardo, Romano or Toscano) and Grana Padano. If you decide to use crappy Parmesan, don't complain- it's like you just insulted a government but you never voted.
3. Bacon or Pancetta. Just because you can find an Italian pancetta, you cannot brag that the pancetta is good. Just like not all bacon is tasty in UK, not all pancetta is tasty in Italy. I love using local free range DRY-CURED bacon. This is more expensive than the usual bacon you serve for the school fundraising but no omission please. I use Havoc Dry Cured Bacon from a free range Pig Farm in Otago, NZ. I recommend you to use your favourite dry-cured bacon as oppose to blindly try a pancetta so you won't be disappointed.
4. Spaghetti. As a general rule when I cook pasta and combine which sauce with which, I divided them in to the absorption capability: high and low. Fresh and cheap dry pasta tends to be highly absorbable, which is great if you have a runny Bolognese sauce. Now the slightly tricky part is finding the ones with low absorption. They tend to be the pricey ones. They tend to yield a truly al-dente texture when done right, as oppose to cheap dry ones that tend to be spongy. I used San Remo Organic 100% Durum wheat Spaghetti (not the Wholewheat variety). There are other brands, you just have to experiment.

The rest of ingredients are optional and adjustable to your likings. I'd like to note some pointers I did in the video that should be useful for your cooking life:

• Sugar, it helps with increasing saltiness (handy for those of you hypertensive) and accentuate the lingering aroma as it caramelise at whatever temperature above 80celcius.
  
• Extra virgin olive oil, I use the peppery variety because fruity olive oil would be just awful for this.
• Black pepper, I like the warmth more than the high punchy pungent note of white pepper. All my pepper is always freshly cracked.
  
• Browning/Maillard reaction, have you ever notice why do you need to brown the meat first? Browning does not seal a meat. There's no such thing as 'sealing' in the juice, those chefs are usually talking about sealing in the bullcrap. Wrong browning process and it'd make the meat tough. So why? The sugar on the surface of the meat/pasta/whatever will caramelise as it hit a very high heat. This is where the taste of umami(tastiness/savouriness) originates- in non-MSG driven western cookery. The key factor is to use very high heat and keep it brief. You will be browning and caramelising (not cooking the interior of the meat, never!)
• Salty boiling water,as salty as sea water (very very salty). Salt is cheap. Salt won't penetrate too much in to the pasta if you cook it right. You need this amount to make the pasta tasty. Careful when making your sauce, taste your pasta first.
• Crispy bacon, not too crispy but not too watery. Render the fat on medium-low heat to avoid burnt, soggy and brined-tasting bacon.
  
• Dairy, use any to your liking. Sometimes the season, pasta, egg, pasta absorption level, cheese,... etc will affect the texture and consistency of the final sauce. Use milk (or even pasta water, but careful of saltiness) to thin, heavy cream to thicken. You can omit them all together.
• Chili/Paprika powder, I didn't use in the video. It is optional but it will add the depth and richness. A little pinch is my little perfectionist touch of the orient.
• Use metal bowl, glass bowl cools the hot spagh too fast.

The video may rather be dragging for you or entertaining for some. It is longer than a typical Gordon Ramsay's celebrity paraphernalias, but if you set a paradigm of being the cook; I actually did the whole thing (dinner for 7) in less than 20 minutes! So get a pot of salted boiling water ready and the bacon chopped up, then cook along with me.



Pierre's Spaghetti Carbonara
serves 4

1 egg
4 egg yolks
6 strips dry cured bacon or pancetta, cut to 3mm wide
500g (low absorptive) dry spaghetti (see above)
160g Parmagiano Reggiano (or Pecorino/Grana Padano), finely grated

1 garlic clove, bruise
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs cream/milk (optional)
1 ts black pepper
1/2 ts chili/paprika powder (optional)
a small pinch of sugar
salt

1. Fill up large saucepan/pot with water and season generously with salt. Bring to boil.
2. Meanwhile, render and crispened the bacon in a non-stick frying pan slowly over medium heat. Also add garlic at the beginning. Discard as the garlic start to brown or when the bacon start to be crispy but tender. Set aside bacon in the bowl. Leave the bacon fat on the frying pan and bring heat to maximum.
3. When the bacon is rendering, in a large metal bowl; mix egg, egg yolk, cheese, bacon, pepper, sugar, cream/milk and chili/paprika powder.
4. When the spaghetti just almost reach al dente, drain and transfer spaghetti to the hot bacon fat-filled frying pan. Stir occasionally for 2 minutes. Immediately transfer and stir in spaghetti to the egg mixture. Serve!

Like they say, the simplest is the hardest to conceal or follow.

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"And the dreams that you dream of, dreams really do come true..."
- Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Photos credit to Edi Go & Video credits to Adri Widyanto