Recipe Note

Recipe Notes:

* I keep all most of my pasta water and use it for things like starting soups, making pizza dough (use it instead of water and salt), or drinking as a broth with a splash of olive oil and some hot pepper flakes.

Variations & Ideas:

Here are the usual ways I play around with this basic recipe:

to make it richer, use 2 whole eggs and 6 yolks, reserving the whites to make meringues, pavlova, etc.try a pepper blend instead of plain pepper, like Pierre Poivre

And a few stranger things (that are also delicious but which may alarm purists):

substitute tarako or mentaiko for the pork, you have the option of cooking it slightly, or leaving it raw for a more velvety texture, I prefer Aleppo to regular pepper in this variant.when I cook for friends who don’t eat meat I substitute diced halloumi cheese for the meat and add a bit of Smoked Salt (use 3 tablespoons of olive oil when cooking the cheese).substitute a tray of sea urchin roe (uni) for the pork, and halve the quantity of pasta (I like using egg linguine). Use 2 eggs, and only 3 tablespoons of Parmigiano, season with just a pinch of Espelette pepper. Cook 5-6 pieces of roe in a pan in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, add a few splashes of pasta water, and stir, then remove from the heat and add the cooked pasta, then the eggs/cheese. Divide between two warm bowls and top with the remaining roe.

This is a great recipe for practicing the technique of making an egg sauce in a pan. Here’s another recipe (actually the first one I did for La Boîte!), that uses the same method and includes vegetables and other spices.

Usually there are no leftovers. But if so, don’t despair. I’ve never liked reheated carbonara, but it’s awesome if you chop it up a bit, crisp it up in a pan, then add some more eggs and scramble. Or mix the pasta with croutons, sauteéd onion, and eggs, and make a frittata.

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