hi I'm Mati Malitney from Roi New York City and today we make our perfect version of spaghetti la carbonara opened 1972 The restaurant is one of the most popular restaurant in Rome here in New York Today we are making our traditional spaghetti alaka carbonara and a simple recipe driven by ingredients is creamy is rich but not too fatty is a very complex dish even if it's something very simple First things we prepare our ingredients Okay we start from the guanchal Gualal is the cheek of the pork I think that guanchchal for the carbonar is way better than any beacon or panchetta because the balance between the fat and the meat The fat is a lot The guanchal is covered with black pepper and on the other side is a skin We have to remove both because the skin is inedible while the black pepper as soon as it goes to the pan is going to be uh burnt and bitter So we remove both of them Technically what we want is a cube that is very uh crunchy outside but soft inside And when meat is not fat enough this is something that is tough to get Now we take a pen We like iron pan but a regular pan is fine Uh we put the fire like a very high heat and as soon as the pan is hot so you can see that now it's hot You put all the cubes of the guanchal here As soon as you put the guanchal in the pan you can lower down the fire up to uh medium heat If you overcook the guanchal it becomes kind of burnt and bitter Gual doesn't require any uh extra virgin olive oil any butter because the meat is extremely fat and if you don't use a pan that is too wide you will have the guanchali frying in its own fat which is exactly what we want It's still a bit translucent Uh as soon as it becomes dark we can take it off You want to put in the bowl even the fat that the guanchal cooked with because if the guanchal is in its own fat it's going to remain crispy even something like in for hours even almost the the day after in a separate pan we put our uh pepper we like to use uh a mix of different peppers we have black pepper from Saravak which is the one that we use the most the one that we use even in Rome and then we have The spicy pepper that is white is from Mtok in Indonesia And then we have a red pepper called Kot In this way you don't have just the flavor of the black pepper but is way more floral and aromatic But at home if you have the black pepper is more than fine It's perfect The pepper release all these uh flavors and aromas It start already smelling It's a beautiful smell Technically you understand when the pepper is ready because the peppercorn start to jump So as soon as they jump the pepper is ready You can take it off and grind it The more you screw the the grinder the more is going to be uh fine the texture and so we don't want that too fine and so we don't screw that too much Some uh grinder have the screw on the bottom to calibrate the thickness Uh some on the top This way we have the texture that we prefer and we can move and start making the sauce We don't make the sauce in a pan but in a bowl The pan it's can be fine And the only thing is that is a bit more risky because when you put the pan on the fire you take the risk to have the egg coagulate and the cheese can become very chewy which is something that we don't want We want a sauce that has to be uh very smooth For the sauce we need first the eggs So let's say that for two people we use two yolk and half white Uh the yolk is very rich and fatty and this is the main ingredients of the sauce Fresh eggs bring this nice yellow color to the sauce We add some cheese Traditionally the carbonara require just pecorino cheese We prefer to use a mix Uh one of the key of the carbonara is the saltiness Balance The saltiness is something that is super important And so that's why we prefer not to use just peorino romano but to add pecorino molerno that is way sweeter The texture of the cheese should be very very fine At home if you have a cheese grater let's use the smaller one And uh here we use a machine actually Then you have to add the pepper and a spoon of the fat of the guanchal Usually we do one spoon per person Without the flavor of the meat it's not a carbon I mean it's something it's something different Before mixing the sauce we add a little bit of water I took the water from the pasta that is boiling Uh melt everything together Then we leave the bowl with the carbonara sauce on the water The steam is going to warm up the sauce and help to make it creamy without coagulating the eggs Now it's time for us to put the pasta in the boiling water This is spaghetton So is a thick spaghetti in one of my favorites The producers are very small They dry their pasta uh slowly at low temperature The problem when you uh dry pasta at a temperature that is too high is that it loses a lot of nutritional elements and even flavors All the components are already very salty So you don't need to add too much salt to the pasta in the water We prefer to use a thick spa the spaon because of its texture and it doesn't go overcooked It remains very al dente You want a pasta that is al dente but is cooked We put it in the sauce and then we start melting it Once the pasta is in the bowl with the sauce we start adding the guanchal I'm trying not to add the fat of the guanchal because I have it already in the sauce So I don't need more fat I just need the guanchal that you can probably even see that is super crispy So now that we have the guanchal we can just emulsify the sauce Uh emulsifying means melting all the ingredients together Fat ingredients especially the cheese helps a lot the emulsion If you add the right amount of water and you do that at the right temperature is going to be a perfect sauce very smooth very eminous and that's exactly what you want The goal here is to have a texture that is smooth If needed we can add even a little bit of water with the starch We want this emulsified not watery but not not super thick And as soon as you see that the pasta is creamy that the sauce is smooth you are good to go Time to plate A spoon is a great help It's pretty easy to plate the pasta because you have it in the spoon You have just to turn it You you remove the tweezers and you have a pasta plated nicely Add a bit of twanchal on top We need now to finish the pasta with the mix of our three peppers And I'm happy And here it is Spaghetti alakarbon The pasta is very al dente truly love this mix of of peppers I think that is very aromatic and in some ways a bit unusual Let's say that this can be a New York twist on our carbonara The guanchal is crunchy It's not overcooked And again you have this beautiful balance in your mouth between saltiness It's for sure a rich flavor but it's definitely not unbalanced That's the way we like it If you want to make carbonara at home my recommendation is besides following these uh few easy steps is to uh be thoughtful about the ingredients that you purchase because they are so important And if you do all that you are going to end up with a pasta that is going to be rich delicious and perfect [Music]