Spaghetti à la Carbonara

Carbonara

Spaghetti alla carbonara
Course	Primo (pasta course, Italy); main course (elsewhere)
Place of origin	Italy
Region or state	Rome/Lazio
Serving temperature	Hot
Main ingredients	Guanciale (or pancetta), eggs, hard cheese (usually Pecorino Romano, Parmesan, or a mixture of the two), black pepper
Variations	(US) peas, mushrooms, or other vegetables, cream

Carbonara (Italian: [karboˈnaːra]) is an Italian pasta dish from Rome made with egg, hard cheese, guanciale (or pancetta), and pepper.

The recipe is not fixed by a specific type of hard cheese or pasta. The cheese is usually Pecorino Romano.Spaghetti is the usual pasta, however, fettuccine, rigatoni, linguine, or bucatini are also used. Either guanciale or pancetta can be used. Another common substitute outside Italy is lardons of smoked bacon.

The dish was created in the middle of the 20th century.

The pasta is cooked in moderately-salted boiling water. The guanciale is briefly fried in olive oil so that it does not become too crispy and instead remains soft. A mixture of raw eggs, grated pecorino (or a mixture of pecorino and Parmesan), and lots of ground black pepper is combined with the hot pasta away from additional direct heat to avoid curdling the egg, either in the pasta pot or in a serving dish. The fried guanciale is added, and the mixture is tossed, creating a creamy sauce. Although various pasta shapes can be used, the raw egg can only cook properly with a shape that has a sufficiently large ratio of surface area to volume, such as spaghetti, linguine or fettuccine.

Guanciale is the most commonly used meat for the dish in Italy, but pancetta is also used and in English speaking countries bacon is often used as a substitute. The usual cheese is Pecorino Romano, or occasionally Parmesan. Recipes differ in the use of egg: some use the whole egg, others only the yolk, some a mixture.