CHEFS vs REDDIT How to make the BEST Carbonara?? | Sorted Food 

Well done, Squirrel! You've got your Tasting Badge!

Here I am after watching a gordon ramsay video where the executive chef could not pass a blindfolded taste test between chicken and beef 😣

He really doesn’t. His tasting is the only thing rivaling Barry’s ingredient choices at home in pretentiousness.

Tasty Badge

I totally agree I think Mike definitely deserved a badge to reward him for identifying subtle differences between two similarly prepared dishes if he didn’t have a badge for it already. It seems silly to award a badge for eating but it’s actually much more difficult than people imagine because most of us are so used to eating a small selection of seasonings and ingredients that we would most likely not be able to identify subtle differences between dishes that were cooked side by side and then be able to distinguish what specific component is making the difference! Fair play Mike I didn’t know he had such a depthy palette

lol, joke went over my head until I read your comment.. which is funny since you only repeated the joke xD

I laughed out loud at this too, 🤣

3:58

Lucky he already has a kid 😂

@@xghoulishgalx you mean the one he traded for a chef's knife?

This would be a good taste test for sure!

Does Ben have an allotment? I never knew!

@@cpmc5400 I know. He's never mentioned it before. Ever.

@@Krinkles555 Ben truly is a mysterious fellow. I bet he wouldn't even talk about those times he went to some other country

That would be fabulous for Saturday nights. Live from the allotment. Now he really needs a tiny house for that.

You could have just left it at "That sassiness of Ben", really. 🤣

@@HerrIMorke hahaha that's fair!

I give it a Ben out of ten.

That part of the oven that at home, we only use to store stuffs lol

Yeah, sourcing proper high quality guanciale here in Australia outside of the big cities where you might find an artisinal butchery or two... is not IMPOSSIBLE... but extremely difficult and VERY expensive. Infact its expensive even IN the big cities. Pancetta on the other hand is at the deli section of virtually every supermarket. I respect the fact guanciale is traditional but I just can't get my hands on that sort of thing easily.

Here in Denmark a lot of good stuff has been happening in the food scene. I noticed it a couple of weeks ago when the butchers department (if that is the correct term) in my small town supermarket had guanciale. It was a happy moment.

The best thing you can do for your dishes is find a local spice store, I cannot stand grocery stores spices any more they are dead and expensive. Buy yours whole at a spice store and you will taste things you've never tasted before, in this case a Tellicherry black peppercorn has citrus notes

mmm yeah you're right he teaches good things mainly the pepper toasting is so good and the dried spaghetti (never seen spaghettoni in italy so idk if it's better honestly, but if you want the best dish i suggest u take a kind of spaghetti more tick not the thinner ones) if you have a hard time finding guanciale i suggest u use bacon (it's still different taste but comes near to it more then pancetta...)

take your pre ground pepper, and throw it in the ocean!

What he made?

@@edmund9871 2 words Paella Burrito I think it looked good personally

He's a coward. Should've gone for the full clean sweep.

Fuck the itllian poilce put whatever you like

@@mesiroy1234 ah yeah, paella and burritos, two iconic Italian dishes....

Ben pretty much said so

Being non-traditional is never a bad thing, people put way too much value in tradition for tradition's sake.

I'm Italian and I 100% agree, I'll way that 90% of the times we cook carbonara we also use pancetta, guanciale is used when you want to make it more special, say for weekends or for guests

@@BeardedDanishViking Truth being traditional means you would use what is available..... not driving across town to buy a specific ingredient because it is 'authentic' :-)

Most of the arguing comes in relation to people presenting nonsense as "the right way" and getting it wrong tbf, there is absolutely nothing wrong with substitutions as long as you don't try to present it as "the real version" or "traditional" etc.

I was thinking that a mixture between the two would have been even better. Use the peppercorn from Ben's, and add the pasta water to loosen up the sauce and allow the flavors to travel, but stick with longer noodles and the jowl.

100% agree

Exacly, always toast your peppercorn if its a main ingriedent. Barry had a good ration of eggs to whites, some ppl put even less whites because you use pasta water to make it looser and whites are easier to scramble. Also big chunks of guanciale is the kicker, but you must remove the pepper layer (it did its thing during curring process and will burn in the pan) and the skin so its crispy on the sides and deliciously bouncy inside. Bonus tip you can keep tossing your pasta to make it more silky using bain-marie (double boiling method) because it wont cook the eggs

I've never agreed with Barry more than in that moment, and Barry is my dude lmao

I've sworn by the cold start method for years now. Alton brown did a great job of explaining it.

@@Furen It literally changes the structure of your pasta to something that is not desired. Pasta needs aggresively boiling water, they even have a name for it in Italy....

@@ef4947 is that true of dried pasta, or fresh pasta? I can see how fresh pasta would need a boiling start. But dried pasta is already cooked, it just needs rehydrated.

​@@cryofpaine Dried pasta is not already cooked unless you specifically buy pre-cooked pasta. I've never seen pre-cooked 'dry' pasta in my life outside of instant noodle type products. Dried pasta just has different ingredients in different ratios, and is typically machined pressed without egg (although you can buy dried egg pasta too). Fresh pasta is almost always made with egg, as 'fresh' pasta without egg usually has a short drying period too. All pasta requires boiling water, not only to cook the pasta but the movement of the water stops the pasta from sticking together (putting oil in the boiling water is absolutely useless). For a dish like carbonara it is advised not to used fresh pasta because this contains egg and carbonara is an egg based sauce, meaning the end product would just taste too much like egg. Just to be clear; dried pasta is not already cooked. If you soak it in water long enough it will become soft but this does not mean the flour is cooked, you will be eating raw flour. Cooking pasta at lower temperatures will mean you are poaching your pasta, which will eventually cook the pasta but it will not have the desired texture the pasta producer intended.

Ma la cotenna no ma che schifo

That's exactly what I wanted to say, it's cured skin, so it's rubbery and doesn't taste like anything. It's better to remove it, as well as the layer of old pepper, and add new fesh one to the mix of egg and cheese.

Yeah came down to write that but you already did! Always take the skin off the guanciale, you don’t wanna bite into a hard uneadible guanciale bit (pork skin is eadible of course, but should be treated differently, especially when it comes from cured meat)

I love how "As an Italian..." gives you (though, rightfully so!) all the valid reason for your critique to be taken seriously, heh... Nothing against, I just find comedy in that cuz I'm weird ^^

@@sc3961 That's kinda funny yeah, but sadly enough on the internet you need to give some kinda explanation why you reasoning is sound or people go bat shit crazy. Thankfully the Sorted Community is very calm. :D

I personally find that following "tradition" is just a stupid way for ppl to force u to use their country's products and also just a way for ppl to stroke their pride. I always reccommend just use what you have on hand and what tastes good to u. After all, if u are cooking for yourself and your family, and everyone enjoys bacon, keep doing that. No need to follow tradition just to empty ur pockets.

@@Pomagranite167 you have to follow tradition to a certain extent to make a specific dish. Say you are making pizza, unless you use bread, a sauce and cheese, you didn't make pizza. Same here, changing the ingredients too much results in a different dish. If you want to taste real carbonara, used real carbonara ingredients.

@@Pomagranite167 Well, culinary traditions generally stem from the history of the places a dish originates from and here there is a local tradition of curing pork cheeks, rather than other cuts of pork. Of course you should cook to personal taste preferences, but the traditional ingredients usually give you a hinto of the history and an idea of how the dish originated. There is a difference between making a dish using the techniques of carbonara and carbonara, but then again in my area restaurants have to label dishes either as "Wiener Schnitzel" for instance, which has to be made with veal and has to be fried in butter and "Schnitzel Wiener Art", where you can replace the veal with another type of meat and can fry it in any fat, but you still have to pound the meat and bread it.

I misread your comment and think you want to find and put guacamole in your pasta.....

Speck is a good alternative and usually available in our supermarkets here in Australia, unlike very expensive and difficult to find, guanciale.

100% - give it a go! Recipes are in the description box :)

Do it today! It's super easy. I use bacon fat cuz I can't get fancy pork in the snow right now.

Actually another tip is you can do it like how Ben did by putting the pasta into the bowl he had the sauce in and you can put the bowl over the pasta water to heat it up double boiler style. Check out luciano monosilio. Italian chef who has a great recipe for carbonara which you essentially cannot fuck up

The only really tricky technical things are temperatures and heat control. Too hot and your eggs scramble. Too low and your cheese does not melt properly. For me carbonara is the easier pasta dish. Cacio e pepe is harder because the cheese sauce is made only with cheese and pasta water. The fat/pasta water emulsion really help keep the cheese from seizing. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't turn out exactly right the first few times. Even the "mistakes" taste good.

That's the way I always do it and it is foolproof. You'll love it (especially if you can get some guanciale)!

Carbonara without guanciale is not worth it. Also, if you don't have guanciale, make pasta Alfredo instead. Majority of restaurants here in Serbia make "carbonara" with cream instead of egg yolks.

@@votdfak There are areas in Italy outside of Lazio where pancetta is routinely used for carbonara. Guanciale is not the easiest thing to find in Italy while pancetta is everywhere and even when you can find guanciale it can be substantially more expensive than pancetta. You just need to take into account that guanciale and pancetta are not cured exactly the same, guanciale has a lot of black pepper and pancetta generally has little to none.

@@votdfak It is very much worth it.

@@ikaro555 Thanks. I'll take a look at that.

No collab but they did meet up and spend time together when Ben and Jamie went to France

Alex also has a series on cacio e Pepe using a frying pan. Great hack/tip to get a silky sauce every time!

@@FELIXHDFELIX Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. That was a good series. Must remember to try that soon.

Toasting can mellow spices, too. It changes their chemistry.

@@b_uppy completely agreed. I still find it amazing in curries, both thai and indian, how the base of spices (I think its just 7 or 8) varies slightly and creates a whole new dish.

@@itsaden6074 Funny you should mention Indian foods because that is what I was thinking of when I wrote that. Not used a lot of spices in Thai food, though.

@@b_uppy more herbs and spices. Galangal, lemongrass, ginger and garlic paste, star anise etc. Different pastes too

That was my takeaway - that most of us really want a plate of carbonara now! 😁 Both looked sublime.

In a pan? Like the same kind of pan you fry an egg in? This is something I have never heard of.

@@AthenaGoddess it's what Ben did in the video.

I poach eggs in a depp frying pan for the same reasons, I actually never thought to try it with pasta but I will now.

Do you cook small amounts of pasta at a time? I tend to cook a whole packet so I don't think that would work. I use a huge pot coz it's the worst when you use a pot too small and the water evaporates before the pasta is cooked.

Do it! And let us know what you think :)

You should also check out the video of Antonio Carluccio's carbonara.

Oh wow I never realised the garlic wasn't a thing! I knew the cream was sacrelige and parsley is rarely necessary anyway but I always just thought "Italy, garlic, yum"

Garlic can be used to enhance the flavour while rendering out the fat of the guanciale. Just add a few halved cloves of garlic, and remove them as soon as they start to take colour and long before the the guanciale/pancetta is done. And for those rosting me for this, not my invention, taken from Gennaro Contaldo's recipe of carbonara. Also if you only have access to bacon when making the dish, this is a nice easy way to elevate it along with roasted pepper.

@@petembb This just isn't done in Rome. I suggest you check Italia Squisita and Abetina Cookery for an authentic way to do it, if you check their recipes you'll see that garlic is totally absent. Regarding Gennaro Contaldo, if this is in reference to his video on Jamie Oliver's youtube channel, he also uses butter because it's a sponsored video, another thing which simply doesn't happen in Rome. As much as I love Gennaro Contaldo, he's a great exponent of Italian food, the recipe is not authentic.

@@Fyreflier that might be a case for a lot of dishes, but carbonara is one of those which doesn't need it.

@@Fyreflier Garlic is often an Italian American thing it honestly seems very few dishes I've seen have more than a little bit in there unless its one of the few dishes actually centered on garlic lol

Why is it almost laughably easy to offend Italians online?

@@DizzyBusy tbh watching food channels i see people from everywhere complaining about food, i dont feel like i even see italians as much as other people.

@@DizzyBusy Mind, I am not Italian myself, only someone who has had an opportunity to visit and host them a decent amount - Italians, as a culture are passionate and dramatic - well, mid to south, there are places in the north where they can be pretty darn cold fishes - and they can hold a grudge like no-one's business, but, and this is the important part - they are selfavere and big-hearthed enough that it takes a concerted effort to get them to actually make something a grudge. So, small stuff? They will shout and moan and make a production out of it, and forgive it all in the very next sentence. Something truly angering them? They will go quiet, and that should be proof enough that you went and goofed spectacularly. TL/DR: Italians are not actually angry most of the time, just drama queens. Under the surface, they are great sports about it.

@@DizzyBusy people change our traditional dishes all the time but still want to call them with their original names. It's not cool.

@@connaeris8230 I mean, it’s one thing to make a carbonara with cream, it’s another thing to add a bit of garlic to a carbonara because you like garlic. A carbonara with garlic doesn’t cease to be a carbonara. People in many other parts of the world treat cuisine as flexible

Yes! Barry found out that you should probably remove the rind after he made the dish 🤦‍♂

@@SortedFood I meant pecorino, apologies , not pectin:)

That's definitely a spaghettoni, because it's thicker. Barry probably just messed up the -ino and -oni suffixes. Spaghettini, as the name suggests, just means thinner spaghetti, usually in between spaghetti and cappelini (angel hair). Barry was using spaghettoni by Pastificio Carmiano from Gragnano, which as far as I'm aware of is the only region of pasta makers with the certification of DOP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta). And to make it extra sure, I checked and Carmiano doesn't sell spaghettini.

@@CalvinLimuel I’m pretty sure the initial comment was meant as a joke, not a serious comment

Because making beans flavored with sadness and pebbles doesn't make a good episode. Relax, everyone. It was a joke. Mostly.

Great idea.

The meat he used was coated in pepper so I think he just used that and skipped adding his own :)

pretty sure it did, I make carbonara quite often and i tried it couple of days ago… made a huge difference

I'm just so happy reddit didn't have them use cream.

Il primo però non ha tagliato la cotenna dal guanciale, non ho mai mangiato una carbonara con la cotenna, ma non penso sia gradevole da masticare...

@@daxnovu3133 mah, io abito in Francia e qua mangiano il salame con il budello..magari in UK hanno un guanciale con la cotenna commestibile 🤷🏼‍♀️

Im half Italian and I agree, but cooking is a talent and some chefs got it down to a science that they improve dish. And that’s the advantage of Italian cooking, It’s simple and easy. It allows for room to modernise the methods. Nationality doesn’t matter, cooking is a science one has to understand. For example cooking the egg yolks over hot water. Only few top chefs do that in Italy, but it’s actually a clever method and creates more texture etc. another one is half Parmesan and half pecorino. It creates umami and a balance of flavours. Most in Rome just use pecorino.

This video shows he had the information but not the experience. The 'chef' method was not executed correctly, the egg was raw and the end results was quite poor from a professional viewpoint. "Carbonara: original vs. gourmet by chef Cristiano Tomei" this video explains everything properly AND executes it correctly.

Absolutely! I'll say that the majority of us Italians also use pancetta and normal quality pasta for 90% of the time we do a carbonara, being a very quick dish it's usually mid week, if I have to make a carbonara that is dressed to impress (maybe week-ends or for some guests) then finding the guanciale and good quality pasta becomes a must!

You won't regret it.... it's delicious!

Do it! It’s amazing! One of my favourite pasta dishes.🤞🏻

@@Anna-uh3jq it IS my favourite pasta dish. Sometimes I feel bad ordering it in a restaurant as I can cook a good one at home. I feel guilty for not trying something I’ve never cooked before but… the lure of a good carbonara is usually too strong! 😋

@@debs5039 No need to feel bad. In my opinion it's the basics where you can see the quality of the restaurant. A well made Spaghetti Carbonara or Aglio e Olio is when you can feel the love and authenticity. Heck, I've asked for Aglio e Olio without it being on the menu… :-)

These guys do a good job of making nice carbonara but all of the talking makes it seem more complicated than it is. Cook cured pork slowly. Cook spaghetti Put spaghetti in pan with meat Mix in egg, pecorino and pepper So easy it’s genuinely one off my go to midweek lazy meals!

I hope you feel better soon.

also his argumentation about dried pasta summs up Alex' recent series about exactly that topic.

Yeah but that might be accepted as a way to substitute an ingredient you can't get, adding things like garlic and/or cream (or even more horrifying, peas and mushrooms like Gordon Ramsay) is unacceptable.

Italians who complain about that sort of thing should really try and break from tradition once in while and be open to new ideas. At the end of the day there the ones losing out but not trying a new experience (know where is it written that traditional mean best)

This comment reminds me of the “if my Grandmother was a bicycle” moment on This Morning.

Lots of people has a misconception of what a carbonara really is. Tbh, i never had the real deal before either, but at the very least it seems easy to cook - well, easier than to do the grocery run for it!

@@jonirnmomba4130 the host guy was still right though XD it did kinda look the same and I bet it tasted similar.

The people you cooked the Roman style carbonara for were about as justified in their complaints as Italians are when they begin clutching their pearls at the American version. They've always known the version with cream as carbonara. From their perspective, the version without cream is a travesty. It's a reasonable, if narrow-minded, perspective to have given their experience. The Italian term carbonara and the American term carbonara do not refer to the same thing. They are cognates. They're like the terms "samosa", "samsa" and related terms that are all essentially the same word, just regionalized to their specific accents, that derive from the same original concept. Yet, India, Uzbekistan, Israel or Iran prepare it in very different manners. Within India itself, you can find very different samosas. Even among the potato versions, potato, salt and maybe cumin are about all that they, reliably, have in common. Every other ingredient is subject to change. You can expect to be similarly perplexed if you asked for a strawberry shortcake in Japan and were expecting the scone dessert. Neither version is wrong in its own cultural context. A cream carbonara is not wrong in an Italian-American restaurant just as the sponge cake version of strawberry shortcake is not wrong in a Japanese bakery and a samosa with potato filling is not wrong in an Indian shop. But, if I were to take over an Uzbek samsa shop, discontinue the meat pie version and start serving the potato version to it's customers instead, well, then, that would be wrong. It's not as if the carbonara with cream, parsley and the rest isn't objectively delicious. The Roman style without these things is delicious, too. To someone without any preconceived notions of what a carbonara is, both versions will taste lovely. The only people who will be turning their nose up are those who are expecting a specific recipe, one way or the other, depending on their personal cultural context. Also, the pretentious snobs who believe that everyone else should also prefer the "authentic" version, whatever that means.

FLAVOUR

I think he’s surprised that they specifically are doing it on the channel because of the backlash they got before. As they mentioned, international incident when they last broke tradition so they generally avoid it haha

It wasn't really though was it lol, quite a simple way of playing carbonara

by the time they cleaned up the kitchen and got ready to film again, both dishes will be long cold

He didn't say use cheap stuff, he said use "good dried pasta". You want to use dry pasta (just semolina) rather than fresh (includes eggs) for carbonara, because fresh pasta doesn't release much starch into the water for making that silky sauce. Alex has gone way further into it on his series on pasta.

@@HaralHeisto He did indeed say that, then goes on to say that you should spend your money on the other ingredients & that "..the pasta can be pretty basic." It was because he said it when the previous shot was of a box of premium dried pasta that I had a little laugh. It's a great method though & I use it a fair bit whether using shop bought dry pasta or my home made stuff that I've dried.

I wondered if that extra al dente-ness was due to the ends of the strands getting a bit less cooking time overall using Barry's method?

Yes, 7 minutes of cooking is too short, unless the pasta is of poor quality (quality spaghetti need 11 or 12 minutes of cooking). To never make a mistake, just drain the pasta one minute before the time indicated on the package, unless you want to finish cooking in the sauce. In that case it should be drained 2/3 minutes before.

This has a 100% stamp Italian approval, one thing is caring about tradition, another thing is being a stuck up, 90% of the time we also use pancetta, and the way ben cooked the pasta is honestly genius, especially if you're making a plate where the pasta water is an actual ingredient!

Gino is Italian Uncle Roger haha

It was very funny watching him become incensed when Holly Willoughby was passing judgement on his. [Or was that the macaroni cheese; with or without the ham in it?]

oh god he would absolutely destroy ebbers

@@Getpojke “If my grandmother had wheels…”

Vincenzo's Plate needs to react to this

We will see 👀

@@SortedFood turns out: I’ll be making The chefs version next weekend. Can’t wait!

Yeah, I honestly love that dish, I just call it American Carbonara lol But the original is such a fantastic dish that it doesn't need help, just some technique.

😂 no bacon, cream or cheese here!

Ooh this is a good idea!

Fingers crossed! 🤞

@@SortedFood Almost perfect! As Ben said 95% of the way there, I'm proud of you guys, I knew i was in good hands!

I totally agree with you, it's your life and you do what works in your family. I do usually try to start with making the authentic dish if possible though as it's often a long long time in the perfecting and a source of pride for the region. At least then you can say you've tried the actual dish (if you can't visit there in person) Tbh, since I'm veggie, there isn't many I don't have to tweak and I would never get angry about someone switching up a national dish, esp for entertainment. Have at the weird Yorkshire pudding or Victoria sponge recipes, we don't mind (I'm not sure if we have any other national dishes) 🤣