Spaghetti carbonara is an Italian classic despite having a popular British rival, which replaces the traditional pancetta with British-style back bacon.
The dish is a staple on most Italian restaurant menus and a popular choice for diners, yet few people attempt making it at home.
For many, this is because the signature creamy sauce is so hard to master without splitting or turning watery. That is when making it without Nigella Lawson’s expert method.
Sharing the recipe from her cookbook How To Eat, the chef said: “This is my favourite – along with all my other favourites. I love the buttery, eggy creaminess of the sauce, saltily spiked with hot-cubed bacon: it’s comforting, but not in a sofa-bound kind of way.
“It feels like proper dinner, only it takes hardly any time to cook. This is my most regular dinner for two: I keep, at all times, the wherewithal to make it in the house.”
Method
Start by boiling water for the pasta. Once it’s bubbling, add a good amount of salt and then the spaghetti.
Next, remove the rind from the pancetta (or guanciale if you have it) and place it in a pan with oil on medium to high heat while you chop the rest of the pancetta.
Add the diced meat to the pan and fry for about five minutes or until it crisps. Now pour in the vermouth and let it bubble for around three minutes until you’re left with about two teaspoons of syrupy wine-infused bacon fat.
Take the pan off the heat and make a start on the carbonara sauce. For the egg mix, simply whisk together the yolk, whole egg, cheese, pepper and nutmeg. The pancetta and cheese should provide enough salt.
When the pasta is cooked, quickly put the bacon pan back on the heat and add the butter. Save a cupful of the pasta water before draining the spaghetti and adding it to the pancetta pan.
Stir everything together well, then turn off the heat – or move the pan away from the hob if using an electric stove.
Pour the egg mix over the bacon-filled pasta and quickly stir it so every bit is covered in sauce.
Nigella warned: “Whatever you do, don’t turn the heat back on or you’ll have scrambled eggs; in time, the hot pasta along with the residual heat of the pan will set the eggs to form a thickly creamy sauce that binds and clings lightly to each strand of pasta.
“Add a tablespoon or so, going gently, of the pasta cooking water as you toss it all together. This will help make the sauce creamier.”
