Caviar and Codfish

I owe you a “proper” carbonara recipe. I mentioned my fondness for authentic carbonara, like months ago, and then there was not another peep from me on the subject. In the meantime, I’ve made “proper” carbonara a handful of times, and even gave an impromptu presentation on carbonara to the employees at the local gourmet market where I buy my guanciale. I just haven’t photographed any of it, since proper carbonara is usually our harried-day dinner, for days when we don’t want to shop, or cook, and certainly aren’t about to pull out the tripod and start taking photos.

So for now, we’ll have to compromise with a summer squash carbonara, since I couldn’t resist photographing these zucchini. It’s not “proper” — far from it — but it does adhere to certain carbonara principles. First, I used guanciale (pig jowl) as the pork ingredient. This rule is often — shockingly! — thrown out the window. I see recipes using bacon and pancetta calling themselves carbonara in cooking magazines all the time. Some of them even mention that if you don’t have pancetta, you can substitute bacon. Pancetta? Pancetta is a substitution in itself. Shouldn’t it read if you can’t, for the life of you, find guanciale you can substitute bacon? Yes, I’ll answer that myself. Yes, that’s what it should say. And while we’re on the subject, I find pancetta too salty for carbonara; I’d rather use bacon, a lightly smoked one.

Here’s what you can do if you can’t find guanciale: buy a fresh pork belly and turn it into bacon yourself, going light on the smoke, or cure it instead with lots of pepper and juniper berries. Or, okay, this is better: find a butcher who can get you all kinds of cuts of meat (or, find a farmer and buy a whole pig — if you have a big freezer — or go in on a share), then use the jowl to make guanciale. Or you could just mail-order guanciale. Don’t worry if you need to buy a whole lot of it at once. It freezes flawlessly. And it’s worth the cost of shipping.

Alright, the second principle, one I’m particularly fussy about: Never let the eggs touch the pan. Whether you whisk the eggs with cheese beforehand or leave the yolks whole to be added to individual bowls before serving, you never want them to touch high heat. High heat ruins the consistency of the sauce or — worse — scrambles the eggs. If you are cooking for someone with a compromised immune system, you could cook the eggs and cheese (slowly!) to 175ºF in a double boiler, like custard, but a compromised immune system is the only excuse for doing that, people. I’ll know if you do it any other way. I’ve got my eyes on you.

By taking your pasta and other ingredients off the heat before tossing with the egg, you ensure that the sauce won’t overcook. Immediately start mixing once you add the pasta and sauce together, and the eggs will cook just the slightest bit, transforming into a silky sauce that’s lighter than a butter sauce, thicker than olive oil.

The final principle is that there must be a lot of freshly ground black pepper. You’ve got to taste the pepper, rather than using it as a background seasoning. Black pepper gives kick to that silky egg sauce, really makes it. Without enough pepper, the sauce tastes too eggy, and that’s not what carbonara is about. In the best carbonaras, unwitting diners can’t even taste eggs in the dish.

In this version, though, it’s okay to go a little easier on the pepper (but still use a healthy amount), since you have so much flavor in the caramelized, sweet, soft, beautiful squash. You want to cook the squash until it’s deeply browned. You’re not looking for crisp tender vegetables here; they should be soft, heavily caramelized, and end up tasting almost as silky as the creamy egg sauce itself. My opinion about zucchini and yellow squash is that it’s a vegetable too often served under-cooked. It’s best when you cook it until the insides are soft and fluffy, like vegetal mousse. Cook it with care, or you’ll end up with mush. The less you mess with the squash, the better; using your spoon to mix it around too often will result in broken pieces with all the insides spilling out. Shaking the pan mixes things up gently. Now would be the time to start perfecting that cheffy toss-and-flip thing with the skillet.

I cut these squash on a diagonal, to mimic the shape of the penne pasta (a tip from Jamie Oliver). It proved a good shape to use since it left a lot of surface area exposed for caramelizing and cooking into browned, tasty goodnesss and the small, similar shapes in the pasta bowl made for easy eating. Each forkful had zucchini and pasta both, a bowlful of perfect bites.

Jim’s away for a few days, so I didn’t have anyone to share with, which was a little sad since we share almost every meal together. But, honestly, having an extra serving was a-okay by me.

Summer Squash  Carbonara

serves 4 // adapted from Jamie Oliver

4 small-to-medium summer squashes (preferably zucchini and thin yellow squash, but any will do)
1 small chunk of guanciale (2 – 3 ounces)
2 big thyme sprigs

2 egg yolks
2 heaping tablespoons crème fraiche (and I mean heaping)
1 healthy handful of parmigiano cheese
lots of freshly ground black pepper
kosher salt

1/2 pound penne pasta
more cheese to taste
chives, optional
good olive oil, for drizzling

Cut the squash lengthwise in half, then cut halves at an angle into slices roughly the same size as the penne. Or, you can leave smaller squash whole and cut into round slices.

Cut guanciale into small chunks and add to a skillet over medium heat. Once the guanciale has begun to render its fat and is looking sort of translucent, add in the squash and bump the heat up to medium-high. Strip the leaves off the thyme stems and add leaves to the pan. Cook until squash is totally tender and deeply caramelized, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, put up a pot of water for the pasta, adding ¼ cup of kosher salt to the water.

In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolks, crème fraiche, and cheese. Add a lot of pepper and a big pinch of salt.

Cook pasta according to direction. Drain, then add pasta to the pan with the cooked squash (make sure the squash is already browned to perfection before you add the pasta in). Stir everything together gently, then remove from heat.

In a large bowl, add the egg mixture. Now, add in your pasta, gently stirring as the pasta is going in, and keep stirring (or tossing) everything together so that the egg mixture warms up, but doesn’t cook. (You need to keep everything moving so enough air circulates that it begins to cool down the pasta. If you add the pasta and leave it for even 30 seconds to do something else, the sauce is likely to lose its silky consistency.)

Serve with a garnish of chives, a drizzling of olive oil, and pass around extra cheese at the table.

Tags: Italian, New Hope Farmers Market, Squash, summer, zucchini

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Comfort Food, Pasta, Pork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.