I plan on revisiting Bolognese this weekend.  Until then, I need to use up some of my fresh ingredients.  This attempt is Spaghetti Carbonara.  This is a favorite of mine since I first tasted it in Morandi when I lived in the West Village.  One of my favorite things was to have brunch there, sitting outside and people watch.  It was right around the corner and I always had the carbonara.  I never really liked it before but I think i had only had versions with cream in it.  This one didn’t and I saw that the Batali recipe also didn’t have cream.  I’ve seen many videos on making it,including the Batali Ipad app, so I think I’m ready to get this right.   I think this was the best instructional video I found.  Also, the end result looked identical to what I had at Morandi.

I made it with guanciale and parmegan-reggiano.  Started out by boiling the water and preparing the ingredients.  Boiling this much water takes 30 minutes, so I do that before anything else.  Everything else takes almost no time.

The mixing process goes pretty quick, so I didn’t think I would have a chance to take any meaningful photos, so I tried to make a video instead.  I forgot to turn off the TV, so there is Molto Mario playing in the background!

It came out great on the first try!  I was worried that I used too much pasta water, but in the end, the sauce was pretty nice and creamy.  This is a really easy dish and I can’t imagine why so many restaurants screw this up.  It’s really easy and so much better without cream.