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ITALIAN DAY: Carbonara for purists

If you want to break chef Robert Belcham’s heart, just ask for peas in your pasta carbonara.
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Campagnolo and Campagnolo ROMA owner Robert Belcham reveals the secret to "proper" spaghetti carbonara.

 

If you want to break chef Robert Belcham’s heart, just ask for peas in your pasta carbonara. The iconic Roman dish is brilliant in its simplicity, containing just four ingredients: guanciale (an Italian variety of bacon), egg, pecorino romano cheese, and cracked black pepper.

“At the end of the day, it’s just four humble ingredients put together simply,” says the owner of Campagnolo and Campagnolo ROMA. “But the result is greater than the sum of its parts.”

The salt of the rendered bacon fat and sharp pecorino romano are offset by the aggressive spiciness of cracked pepper. The egg yolks are folded into the pasta off the heat of the stove, allowing them to attain a creamy texture – but never congealing, and never cooking fully into a scrambled mess.

The result is, quite simply, perfection on a plate.

And therein lies the problem. It seems that some people can’t help themselves.

“It’s a chef’s ego – a chef thinking they can improve on something that’s already perfected,” says Belcham. “You don’t fix what isn’t broken.”

Bastardized versions often include cream or peas. One particularly offensive version that’s gained notoriety recently is a French “one-pot” recipe, in which the bacon is boiled in the pasta water. The uproar over the offending recipe has even led to somewhat of an international incident, with an Italian newspaper accusing the French of destroying a dish that symbolized Italian traditions.

The public, now accustomed to low-rent bacon alfredo masquerading as carbonara, has unfortunately adjusted their expectations of the dish accordingly. Belcham recently had a customer send back their plate of spaghetti carbonara because there were no peas in it, and it had “too much pepper.”

“That was the icing on the cake,” says Belcham. “Carbonara is supposed to be loaded with pepper.”

Like its close cousin cacio e pepe, pasta carbonara’s beginnings can be traced to the Italian capital of Rome. No one’s really sure who invented the dish, but it gained popularity following the Second World War.

Carbonara is close to Belcham’s heart, and says the dish is the inspiration, of sorts, for the philosophy behind Campagnolo and Campagnolo ROMA – simple, traditional Italian, prepared with the best ingredients and with the utmost respect. Humble and delicious.

However, even Campagnolo ROMA’s version would likely be considered a travesty in some corners of Rome, Belcham admits. In addition to the requisite guanciale, eggs, pepper, and pecorino romano, Belcham adds a small sprinkling of finely diced red onions.

“Each of the ingredients has to be high quality or it doesn’t work,” he says.

 

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With only four ingredients, pasta carbonara is brilliant in its simplicity. - Dan Toulgoet photo

Recipe: Spaghetti carbonara  (serves 4)

 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup guanciale, diced (usually found at an Italian deli)

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 generous tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup red onion, very thinly sliced

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 whole large egg

1/2 cup pecorino romano, grated very fine

400 grams fresh spaghetti

 

Directions:

• Bring a large pot of cold water to a boil and season heavily with salt.

• In a small bowl, mix the egg and grated pecorino and reserve.

• In large sauté pan, over medium-high heat, add in the extra virgin olive oil. Add in the diced guanciale and slowly cook until it renders some of it fat and starts to crisp. • Add in the red onion and cook until translucent, add in the black pepper and sauté briefly.

• Add in the white wine and deglaze. Remove the pan from the heat. 

• Start cooking your pasta, it should take 2-4 minutes maximum. If you want to use dried spaghetti, cook until al dente. 

• Add the hot cooked spaghetti to the pan, and then the pecorino egg mixture. Mix the pasta off heat until the sauce is thick and uniform. You can use a bit of pasta water to adjust the consistency of your sauce. It should just nicely coat the pasta. 

• Divide amongst four warm pasta bowls and serve.