Carbonara: Five ingredients is all it takes to create one of the world's greatest dishes
Updated ,first published
THE DISH
Carbonara, Italy
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Five ingredients. That's all it takes to create one of the world's greatest dishes, an alchemical, transcendental bowl of rich, fatty goodness. Carbonara, Rome's famed pasta staple, is made using eggs, guanciale (cured pig's cheek), pecorino cheese, cracked pepper, and pasta. That's it. Most modern-day chefs throw in a little parmigiano-reggiano, even if they don't admit it, and you need the pasta water to emulsify the sauce, but this is still one of the simplest dishes you could imagine, and yet one that has a multitude of styles and interpretations. What they hold in common is chewy pasta and a sauce that's richer than Silvio Berlusconi – only far more palatable.
FIRST SERVE
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Little do people realise, but carbonara was actually invented by an American, a soldier who in 1944 decided to add his rations of eggs, bacon and cream to the local spaghetti. I mean, that's a version of how carbonara was invented, but what's far more likely is that this was an inevitable blending of pasta alla gricia – a Roman dish using cheese and guanciale – and pasta cacio e uova, an old-style dish with cheese and egg. The first use of the name "carbonara" was in 1950.
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I could write a whole newspaper section on finding Rome's best carbonara, but for now I'm going to say it's Trattoria Santo Palato (santopalato.superbexperience.com). Wait, no, it's Salumeria Roscioli (salumeriaroscioli.com). No, Da Cesare al Casaletto (trattoriadacesare.it).
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Truly great, Roman-quality carbonara is hard to find in Australia. In Sydney, try La Favola in Newtown (favola.com). In Melbourne, Ciao Mamma in Brunswick (ciaomamma.com.au) is good.
ONE MORE THING
Carbonara is part of the "Roman family" of pasta sauces: cacio e pepe, which is just cheese and pepper; gricia, which is just cheese, pepper and guanciale; and amatriciana, which is just tomatoes, cheese, pepper and guanciale.
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Ben Groundwater is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist, broadcaster, author and occasional tour guide with more than 25 years’ experience in media, and a lifetime of experience traversing the globe. He specialises in food and wine – writing about it, as well as consuming it – and at any given moment in time Ben is probably thinking about either ramen in Tokyo, pintxos in San Sebastian, or carbonara in Rome. Follow him on Instagram @bengroundwaterConnect via email.