Listen to the Flavors

Let's get one thing out of the way. True carbonara is not a cream sauce. True carbonara has only these ingredients: eggs, hard cheese, bacon or pancetta, black pepper, and water. It's quite simple to make, but takes a little practice to get the texture right. This is a dish my boyfriend and I like to make. It's pure comfort food. He makes the pasta from scratch and I make the sauce. If you can, use fresh pasta. Soon we'll share a recipe for that. For now though, if you don't make your own pasta, use fresh or dried pasta from the store. We like this dish best with spinach fettuccini, but you could use any long stringy pasta. Carbonara is traditionally made with spaghetti. It doesn't work well with tubes or chunky pasta because it's too hard to get the egg mixture to coat it evenly. When you make carbonara, you rely on the heat of the pasta to gently cook the eggs. Now let's talk about pork. Use either bacon, pancetta, or a combination of both