Beautiful courgette carbonara | Jamie Oliver pasta recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the golden rule of cooking a carbonara? ›

The golden rule to silky carbonara is to whisk your egg whites so that they're completely incorporated with the egg yolks.

Place a large non-stick frying pan on a medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then add the courgettes. Cook for 4 minutes, tossing regularly, while you finely slice the mint leaves, then stir them into the pan. Toss the drained pasta into the courgette pan with a splash of reserved cooking water.

Whisk Like You Mean It

You're using more egg yolks than whites here, which is what makes carbonara so rich and luxurious. But there's still two eggs-worth of whites in there. Whisking your eggs so that the whites are completely incorporated into the yolks will give your sauce a more uniform texture.

A real carbonara does not contain onion, garlic, or cream.

Blown. Taste.com.au Food Director, Amira Georgy, confirmed this, saying: “Traditionally, carbonara sauce contains no cream, just eggs and cheese. The eggs and cheese are added to the hot pasta and tossed together until a silky sauce forms.”

Salt and wrap your zoodles.

Let them sit for about 10–15 minutes — just enough time for the salt to extract the moisture. You may have to change the paper towels depending on how damp they get, but a gentle squeeze at the end will drain any leftover water before you sauté.

Before using we like to toss it in some lemon juice to soften it slightly. Try it in our zingy salad with ricotta, mint & chilli. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and once hot, add the courgetti and stir-fry briefly for 30 seconds to a minute. You are looking to warm the courgetti through without wilting it.

Zucchini is low in fat, sugar, and calories, and high in vitamin C and fiber, making it a great substitute for traditional pasta noodles. Fiber helps to regulate bowels and maintain good digestive health, and vitamin C acts as an antioxidant to protect cells.

Using a large mixing bowl and setting it over the boiling pasta water to create a makeshift double boiler helps prevent you from accidentally scrambling the eggs.

What thickens carbonara? ›

Equally important is that the fat that melts out of the guanciale is required to thicken the carbonara sauce to make it creamy. Basically, what happens is that when the fat from the guanciale and in the egg yolks is mixed with starchy pasta cooking water, it thickens.

Preparing the Parmesan and Egg Mixture

Step 4: Combine the eggs and pecorino and scramble together while the pancetta is frying. I always use 1 egg yolk for every egg I add. This makes the carbonara perfectly creamy. The argument against using egg whites is that they cook quicker than egg yolks.

Cream is not used in most Italian recipes, with some exceptions. However, it is often employed in other countries, as adding cream makes the dish more stable.Similarly, garlic is found in some recipes, but mostly outside Italy.

While a simple spaghetti carbonara recipe uses pancetta as the meat and a traditional Italian recipe may use guanciale, a cured pork, De Laurentiis combines bacon and pancetta to give her dish a unique salty kick. But she ups the ante even more with a secret ingredient — cinnamon.

I like to use a ratio of 1 whole egg to 3 egg yolks because it balances the richness. If you are looking to avoid using raw eggs, I would recommend making my Cacio e Pepe recipe – this is another one of the four classic Roman pastas but requires only three ingredients (cheese, pepper, and pasta).

Guanciale – This is a key ingredient in carbonara, and is a cured fatty pork that is similar to bacon and pancetta. It adds adds flavour into the dish and the fat makes the sauce creamy when mixed with the egg and starchy pasta cooking water.