How The Best Carbonara in NYC is Made

[lively music] [food sizzling]

Hi, I'm Mattia Moliterni from Roscioli New York City

and today we make our perfect version

of spaghetti alla carbonara.

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Roscioli opened in 1972.

The restaurant is one

of the most popular restaurants in Rome.

[bell dinging]

Here in New York,

today we are making our traditional spaghetti alla carbonara

and a simple recipe driven by ingredients.

It's creamy, it's rich, but not too fatty.

It is a very complex dish,

even if it's something very simple.

First things, we prepare our ingredients.

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Okay, we start from the guanciale.

Guanciale is the cheek of the pork.

I think that guanciale for the carbonara

is way better than any bacon or pancetta

because the balance between the fat and the meat.

The fat is a lot.

The guanciale is covered with black pepper

and on the other side is the skin.

We have to remove both because the skin is inedible

while the black pepper,

as soon as it goes to the pan,

it's going to be burnt and bitter,

so we remove both of them.

Technically what we want is a cube

that is very crunchy outside but soft inside

and when a meat is not fat enough,

this is something that is tough to get.

Now we take a pan, we like iron pan,

but a regular pan is fine.

We put the fire like very high heat

and as soon as the pan is hot,

so you can see that now it's hot,

you put all the cubes of the guanciale here.

[food sizzling]

As soon as you put the guanciale in the pan,

you can lower down the fire up to medium heat.

If you overcook the guanciale,

it becomes kind of burnt and bitter.

Guanciale doesn't require any extra virgin oil, any butter

because the meat is extremely fat

and if you don't use a pan that is too wide,

you will have the guanciale frying in its own fat,

which is exactly what we want.

It's still a bit translucent.

As soon as it becomes dark, we can take it off.

You want to put in the bowl even the fat

that the guanciale is cooked with

because if the guanciale is in its own fat,

it's going to remain crispy.

Even something like for hours.

So even almost the day after.

In a separate pan, we put our pepper.

We like to use a mix of different peppers.

We have black pepper from Sarawak, which is the one

that we use the most, the one that we use even in Rome.

And then we have this spicy pepper that is white.

It's from Muntok in Indonesia.

And then we have a red pepper called Kampot.

In this way you don't have just the flavor

of the black pepper, but it's way more floral and aromatic.

But at home, if you have the black pepper,

it's more than fine, it's perfect.

The pepper release all these flavors and aromas.

It start already smelling.

It's a beautiful smell.

Technically you understand when the pepper is ready

because the pepper can start to jump.

So as soon as they jump, the pepper is ready,

you can take it off and grind it.

The more you screw the grinder,

the more it's going to be fine, the texture.

And so we don't want that too fine

and so we don't screw that too much.

Some grinder have the screw on the bottom

to calibrate the thickness, some on the top.

This way we have the texture that we prefer.

And we can move and start making the sauce.

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We don't make the sauce in a pan, but in a bowl.

The pan, it can be fine.

The only thing is that it's a bit more risky

because when you put the pan on the fire,

you take the risk to have the egg coagulate

and the cheese can become very chewy,

which is something that we don't want.

We want a sauce that has to be very smooth.

For the sauce, we need first the eggs.

So let's say that for two people,

we use two yolk and half white.

The yolk is very rich and fairy

and this is the main ingredients of the sauce.

Fresh eggs bring this nice yellow color to the sauce.

We add some cheese.

Traditionally the carbonara require just Pecorino cheese.

We prefer to use a mix.

One of the key of the carbonara is the saltiness.

Balance, the saltiness is something that is super important

and so that's why we prefer not to use just Pecorino Romano,

but to add the Pecorino Moliterno that is way sweeter.

The texture of the cheese should be very, very fine.

At home, if you have a cheese grater,

let's use the smaller one.

And here we use the machine actually.

Then you have to add the pepper

[grinder crunching]

and a spoon of the fat of the guanciale.

Usually we do one spoon per person.

Without the flavor of the meat, it's not a carbonara.

I mean, it's something different.

Before mixing the sauce,

we add a little bit of water.

I took the water from the pasta that is boiling,

melt everything together.

Then we leave the bowl

with the carbonara sauce on the water.

The steam is going to warm up the sauce,

help to make it creamy without coagulating the eggs.

Now it's time for us to put the pasta in the boiling water.

This is spaghettoni, so it's a thick spaghetti,

one of my favorites.

The producers are very small, they dry their pasta slowly,

at low temperature.

The problem when you dry pasta at a temperature

that is too high is that it loses a lot

of nutritional elements and even flavors.

All the components are already very salty, so you don't need

to add too much salt in the pasta in the water.

We prefer to use a thick spaghetto, the spaghettoni

because of its texture

and it doesn't go overcooked.

It remains very al dente.

You want a pasta that is al dente, but it's cooked.

We put it in the sauce and then we start melting it.

Once the pasta is in the bowl with the sauce,

we start adding the guanciale.

I'm trying not to add the fat of the guanciale

because I have it already in the sauce,

so I don't need more fat.

I just need the guanciale that you can probably even see

that is super crispy.

So now that we have the guanciale,

we can just emulsify the sauce.

Emulsifying means melting all the ingredients together.

Fair ingredients, especially the cheese,

helps a lot the emulsion.

If you add the right amount of water

and you do that at the right temperature,

it's going to be a perfect sauce,

very smooth, very homogenous,

and that's exactly what you want.

The goal here is to have a texture that is smooth.

If needed, we can add even a little bit of water

with the starch.

We want this emulsified, not watery,

but not super thick.

And as soon as you see that the pasta is creamy,

that the sauce is smooth, you are good to go.

Time to plate.

A spoon is a great help.

It's pretty easy to plate the pasta

because you have it in the spoon.

You have just to turn it.

You remove the tweezers and you have a pasta plated nicely.

Add a bit of guanciale on top.

We need now to finish the pasta with the mix

of our two peppers.

[lively music] [pepper grinding]

And you have even a bit of Pecorino.

And here it is, spaghetti alla carbonara.

[lively music] [Mattia slurping]

[Mattia chuckling]

The pasta is very al dente.

Truly love this mix of peppers.

I think that is very aromatic

and in some ways a bit unusual.

Let's say that this can be a New York twist

on our carbonara.

The guanciale's crunchy, it's not overcooked.

And again, you have this beautiful balance in your mouth

between saltiness is for sure, a rich flavor,

but it's definitely not unbalanced.

That's the way we like it.

If you want to make carbonara at home,

my recommendation is besides following these few easy steps,

is to be thoughtful about the ingredients that you purchase

because they are so important.

And if you do all that, you are going to end up with a pasta

that is going to be rich, delicious, and perfect.