Joe can cook! Season 2 Episode 6: The most sinful of Carbonara you will eat

We have been cooking quite diligently but more often than not it either involves cooking something so simple i.e. like pan frying some chicken and opening up a bottle of pre-made sauce or use one of the recipes I have shared before. Basically nothing to share on this blog. However there has been one dish that I have been experimenting with and I think I have finally gotten it to a level that is worth sharing; the humble looking carbonara.


Now I don't know about you but once upon a time, I thought carbonara was that pasta dish with creamy cheese and bacon sauce. It was probably only in recent years that I had what the Italians would call a carbonara, a version without cream. Wait a second, if there is no cream in there, where does the creaminess come from?

The creaminess is all in the egg yolks and good pecorino. If you can't get pecorino, you can settle for parmesan.

So my take on the carbonara (serves 2).

Step 1: Boil water and cook your pasta according to how you want it; al dente preferable.

Step 2: Mix in a bowl, around 50 grams of grated pecorino or parmesan, 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, a tablespoon or two of cream (if you like your carbonara to have a bit of sauce). Whisk till its combined.

Step 3: Pan fry some pancetta or bacon if you like with some garlic. Make sure you pan fry them till most of the oil has extracted from the bacon.

Step 4: Take the pan of bacon and garlic off the heat. Put pasta in and then the mixture you created in Step 2. Mix well. If you find that your mixture is too little! vs. the pasta you put in, use the boiling water from the pasta accordingly.

Step 5: Plate up and put more grated cheese on top if you wish.

If you like, you can add mushrooms to it but that wouldn't be original.

I am running out of ideas on what to cook and share on this blog. Any suggestions?