4th and best version was the one I made on camera (that never happens!).
This is a story about recipe development and what my process looks like. Sometimes, the most simple concepts end up being the most elusive, and this Carbonara-inspired pasta took me through all four stages of the creative arc, from “genius idea!” to “do I even know how to cook????”
I love making pasta and my audience loves when I make pasta: I’m not bragging, it’s a data-driven fact. So I’ve done a lot of pastas, but I haven’t done a Carbonara in either of my books or on my channel. As we approached the colder and cozier months in planning, I thought maybe it was time to fix that, and Carbonara was officially on our planning lineup.
I was not expecting this to be a challenge. In fact, I was a tiny bit bored by the idea, even though I love Carbonara. It’s just that I had done a couple deep dives on this dish already and wasn’t sure how much new perspective I could bring to it. When I worked at Bon Appétit, I reported a classic Carbonara from chef Barbara Lynch in Boston, whose recipe was developed after eating her way through dozens of Roman versions. Very traditional, very egg-yolk forward, very good. From her I learned that rigatoni is as common as spaghetti when it comes to the pasta choices, and that a blend of pecorino and Parmigiano is typical, as well (before that, I thought it always had to be Parm).
First pass: Turns out there is such a thing as “too crisp.”
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