Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Pasta Carbonara! – And Bread. Always Bread.

Hey everyone!

Hope you’ve all managed to shovel your houses out of their various sized snowdrifts or survived calamitous floods or tornadoes or your weather malady of choice.

/removes sunglasses. checks weather. 72 and sunny. puts sunglasses back on.

Look at that! It’s Gravy time!

Before we get the party started I wanted to share something with you.

I’m, like actually going to an event. Yeah! Like a real event event. Granted it’s not until the middle of June but just the very act of purchasing tickets for said event felt a little anarchistic.

Yes, I will absolutely be following standard safety protocols – shit for probably another 2 years or so – but the event organizers claim it is extremely safe in design.

What is this event you may ask?

It’s called “Immersive Van Gogh LA.” Check the link, it looks cool as fuck.

Organizers have this shit figured out regarding safety. They just had the same exhibit in Toronto with over 140,000 visitors and no infections. Everyone must be masked the fuck up, there are timed entries so there should be no overcrowding. Exhibits are fully marked and lined for proper distancing, it’s cleaned constantly, hand sanitizer dispensers, contactless tickets etc, etc, etc.

They haven’t even told us where it’s going to be yet, just that it’s in the “Heart of L.A.”

I’m taking Eldest right and the 2 oldest granddaughters.

Goddamn right it’s going to be weird. I haven’t done shit but visit the grocery store, go to work and get my hair cut a couple of times for the last goddamn year.

For me the big allure, apart from being a huge Van Gogh fan, will be to experience something unique and hopefully amazing with some of my family.

How fucking incredible will that be?

I did visit LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) about 20 years ago for the “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs” exhibit and that shit was fucking breathtaking. “Cafe Terrace at Night”, “The Potato Eaters” and “Wheatfield with Crows” (“WHEATFIELD WITH CROWS!”) along with several self portraits and about 200 other pieces were on display and it was life altering.

Yeah this shit has my name all over it.

If I don’t fucking die I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Is that optimism I’m feeling? Ya know? I think it just may be. I have something to (gulp) look forward to!

Now where’s my fucking vaccine already!

So about today’s gravy.

Let’s expand our Italian horizons a little further by making a truly delicious and relatively simple meal.

Today we’re doing pasta carbonara and of course…

Homemade bread.

You regular readers know that I’ve cooked Italian so many times that I had to wrack my brain just to come up with today’s menu. There’s a tag on this post that says “I’ve got enough menu ideas for an Italian restaurant now.” That’s no goddamn joke either. It was the very first season (from 2015!) and episode 2 where I gave my recipe for the Mother Sauce and I haven’t stopped since.

Knock yourselves out with that search feature up there.

Yes we did make bread just a couple of weeks ago and I’ve got to break the news that we’re doing it again real goddamn soon.

It really has gotten to the point where it’s easier to make at home than to drive to the store to buy some.

No shit!

Plus you can’t fucking beat the insane smell it imparts to the house while it’s cooking. Fucking intoxicating.

I may be addicted.

As I mentioned in that post from a few weeks ago, this shit is all about reps. I’m just fine-tuning the bread at this point. It is already fucking stupid delicious but now I wanted to tweak the texture of the crust just a tiny bit.

My brain went back to the bread in New Orleans and the only thing that separates my bread from theirs is it doesn’t quite have the same “shatter.” You know what I’m talking about. When you bite into the bread and you need the waiter to bring over the crumb scraper thingy?

That’s the tweak I’m going after. I want some more fucking crumbs dammit!

Now the thing about pasta carbonara, you don’t even need to jot down a fucking list. It’s pancetta (or bacon or guanciale), pasta, pasta water, cheese (2 kinds today) eggs and egg yolks and a little olive oil. Grind on some black pepper?

Shit yes.

Simple Italian cooking with only a handful of ingredients.

Exactly how it’s meant to be!

If you’re following along with the bread, once again get your recipe right here.

Let’s formalize the carbonara for you.

Pasta Carbonara!

4 oz. diced pancetta – use guanciale if you have better luck finding it than I did.

1 tablespoon of olive oil

3/4 pound of al dente spaghetti. – Yes I used store bought for a reason. Starch!

2 eggs – beaten

2 egg yolks – also beaten

1/3 cup of grated Pecorino Romano

1/3 cup of Parmigiano Reggiano

1 cup of reserved pasta water.

Several grinds of black pepper.

Here’s some cool shit. I have uses for the yolks and the whites both!

The yolks for the carbonara sauce and the white for the egg wash that bastes the bread.

Bonus!

Again, this pasta is super fucking simple.

Grate up your cheeses.

Two stinky cheeses!

We’ve worked with Romano before. Going to drop a useful tip on you; try and use the leftover Romano as soon as possible. It’s a “fridge wrecker” with the smell.

Got our cheese grated and our eggs and yolks mixed.

Get them partying together!

Grab our pancetta, my local Ralph’s has theirs already diced which is pretty goddamn convenient as far as I’m concerned.

This dish comes together in basically the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. So get your pasta water going.

Give the eggs and the cheese a few healthy grinds of black pepper. We’ll add even more at the end.

Now we’ve got our goo ready.

Add the olive oil to the pan you’re building the sauce in, get it over a medium flame and then add in the pancetta.

Let me explain the cooking vessel used today.

I’m using my Dutch oven because I want to add the cooked pasta right into the same vessel that I’m building the carbonara in. This dish only really works when you do it this way. You won’t be successful if you cook the pasta then dump the eggs and cheese on top. This dish has to be “developed” which also explains the use of the extra pasta water.

You want that pancetta crispy with most of the fat rendered out.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t worry about draining the fat out. We’ll be just fucking fine.

Get the pasta water boiling and let’s cook our spaghetti.

Again, I used the store bought spaghetti for its starch component. I used “spaghetti” specifically because it’s a denser pasta. When the pasta is al dente scoop out a cup of the pasta water and set aside.

Cook your pasta, drain it, then add it directly into the Dutch oven with the pancetta and the drippings. Give it a good-ass mixing right here.

Now add in the goo.

Give it a proper stir too.

Now it may look like it’s incorporated well but we want to get it a little more creamy. Add enough of the pasta water to reach the desired level of creaminess. You may use a splash or you may use the entire cup. This is based on your personal definition of “creamy.” Think Italian macaroni and cheese.

I should mention that you want to stir pretty fucking constantly here. We’re not trying to make pasta and scrambled fucking eggs. We’re making carbonara. Keep stirring. A good 2 minutes non-stop.

Now we need plenty of black pepper.

There you go. See that texture!

Precisely what we’re looking for.

Now back to the bread. I did this a little out of order because I wanted to give you the carbonara recipe uninterrupted and wanted to give you an idea for both how quick it comes together AND the attention it needs in order to do it properly. The pasta was made while the bread was finished rising and was cooking in the oven.

If you’re following along with the bread, once again get your recipe right here.

This is on its final rise after we’ve shaped and slashed. Once the final rise is finished, give it a baste with the egg wash and get that bastard into the oven.

What did we do different today in order to improve crustiness? We started the bread in a pre-heated 400 degree oven rather than the standard 350, bake for 5 minutes, then spritz the bread with some water. Standard spray bottle is perfect here.

Now reduce the heat back down to 350 and finish cooking for an additional 20-25 minutes.

How did we do?

That’s a sexy motherfucker!

Let’s give her the old crumb test next.

Survey says?!

Crumbage attained!

I don’t know about you but I’m fucking starving over here.

Now let’s plate this shit up.

Plate the pasta and give another sprinkle or 2 of the grated Romano and a final grind or so of the black pepper.

Hell yes.

How does that look close-up?

There you go.

Goddamn delicious is how it looks.

All of this luxury with only a handful of ingredients.

This dish is EXACTLY as tasty as the few ingredients you use. Sure you could use bacon. I guess. But it would take away from the crispy pancetta. Not to mention it would impart a hickory smoke element that ain’t exactly textbook Italian. This would be better with real Guanciale though.

Think you could get away with pre-grated or a cheaper cheese? Shit man, it’s like I don’t even fucking KNOW you anymore.

You’ve only got a few ingredients so go ahead and buy the best you can.

Taste? It’s fantastic! Each ingredient plays off the others. It’s cheesy and a little funky from the Parm and the Romano. The black pepper really shines through. It’s cheesy, rich, decadent goodness. Simple and extremely satisfying.

This is the part where you say “Did you really go to all of that effort with the homemade bread only to turn it into FUCKING GARLIC BREAD?!”

Oh fuck yes I did!

I’m driving this choo-choo and I can do whatever the fuck I want!

Best garlic bread you will EVER have. This pasta dish was just screaming “Garlic bread!” right in my goddamn earhole the entire time I was making it.

I have zero regrets.

So very very fucking good.

And there we are!

Another dish to add to our extensive Italian canon already in place.

Simple. Direct. Delicious.

And that pasta dish could be thrown together on a week night!

Wait, do you folks actually have differences between week nights and weekend nights now?

This pandemic done fucked with my head.

Thanks again for playing along with the home version of Sunday Gravy.

Just keep “staying the course” folks and we’ll eventually see the other side.

Not exactly sure what that other side will look like but at least we can see it together.

Be Safe!

Be Well!

PEACE!