So being in Italy, of course it's really strange. You think you'd eat everything in sight and all that you'd gain weight. I actually lost weight in Italy. And it's an ongoing joke that happens with a lot of people because one you're walking everywhere and two you're eating habits changed there. What is it? Are they eight hours ahead or eight hours behind? Always forget? And so your little cattiwampus when you get there. But we ate really good food.
And two things that stood out to me I wanted to talk about for Technique of the Week, and that is spaghetti carbonara and apparol sprits, which is a beverage that has often had before your meal there in Italy. Not because we didn't have fantastic pizza we did, or other pastas we did, or other dishes we did. I'm not a big drinker when I travel. I'm not really a big drinker at home. Okay, Ita lyas ahead, thanks
Kaala by eight hours. So you know, I like to have a drink when I'm in my shop working not with power tools, and when I'm grilling. Those are kind of things when I like to tip a glass or something like that. But when i'm traveling. I'm not really big on that, other depending on the circumstances I'm in and things like that. So I didn't drink a whole lot at a little prosecco here, a tiny bit of
champagne at the wedding, and that was about it. I didn't have any cocktails with the exception of an apparel sprits, So I'll get into that shortly. Let's start with real deal spaghetti carbonara. I have been called or texted many a times, no joke with people saying, I'm at this restaurant and I'm having the best pasta sauce I've ever had, And inevitably I'll go what color is it and they'll
say yellowish, and I say that's cobonara. Because there is something so special and magical about this sauce and it's not difficult, so I thought we'd do that. Let's talk about real carbonara. It's this rich, creamy and silky, smooth sauce that just encapsulates completely in gloves every piece of pasta. It just really marries like no other sauce. To me, it should have zero cream in it. The creaminess is
not from cream. It comes from just the eggs, comes from the cheese, a little bit of starchy pasta, water or what chefs referred to as liquid gold. And that's it. It's simple, it's pure, it's delicious, and i'll break it down for you. This is for serving of four people, one hundred and seventy five grams of guanchale. Now, guanchale is pork jowls. It's a it's a it's a cured meat and it comes from the cheeks, the faces, flavor people.
The thing is for a long time, from the seventies till about I think twenty thirteen twenty fourteen or so, a lot of Italian processed or cured meats pork were not legally allowed in the United States. Has to do with an illness that was found in the concern of bringing that illness here to the States. It's harder to find than most other things, but when you can find it, it's fantastic to good order as well. So guanchale is like bacon, but it's not smoky, it's sweet, it's salty.
You cut it into batons, these short batons, and it just has this great shoe factor and really goes up against the silkiness of the in this case the bright yellow, delicious sauce. So two large eggs than two egg yolks, one hundred grams of parmigiano reggiano. You can use pecorino, You can use parmesan, but you want it finally grated. A quarter teaspoon of black pepper, freshly cracked is going
to be the best friend here. Four grams of spaghetti pasta dried, one tablespoon of kosher or cooking salt that you're gonna put that in your pasta water, of course, and really this to doesn't need any extra salt between the pasta water being properly salted is Most chefs will tell you pasta water should be salty like the ocean, so kicking it up over that tablespoon is fine as well. And also that guanchale is going to kick up the salt content. You want half cup reserved pasta cooking water
that is liquid gold. The starches in there are going to thicken that sauce in a way nothing else can optional. You can use some garlic, a garlic clove finally minced. Some people put chopped parsley or extra cheese for garnish. That's fine as well, carbonara, which is a fantastic sauce. Just getting back from Italy. The two things that really stood out was carbonara is just not something we have
as much here. We tend to have red sauces here, or Alfredo, a cheese sauce, or a mornee like a cheese sauce that you'd have with mac and cheese, that type of thing. So you want to cut the guanchale into these little batons about a half centimein or thicker, so they get real gold and crispy. They're wonderful. You want to grate the cheese. Finally, grate your cheese. Get that microplane out. This is the time to use it. You don't want to use pregraded stuff when it comes
to this because it won't melt right. Whisk the sauce base in a big bowl, really wonderful, big enough to toss all the pasta you wish together. Whisk together the eggs these a raw by the way, the yolks, the cheese, and the pepper. You get this. This is your creamy sauce base. No heat needed just yet. You boil the pasta. Get a big pot of boiling water about four liters, and you add salt. Cook your spaghetti until it's al dente,
it's a little toothy in the center. And then just before draining, you scoop out one cup of that hotch starts you water, because that is liquid gold and you're gonna use that to thicken up this sauce. You cook the guanchale, and once that cooks, you toss your guanchli into a pan. You don't need oil. You cook that up. It's delicious and it's unfat. Get it golden and crispy. You can toss garlic in there later, if that's your thing. You bring it all together. You drain your pasta, then
immediately add it to the pan with your guanchali. You toss it around. Pasta gets coated and glorious fat. You tip the whole thing, pasta, guancholi, all of that flavorful fat into a bowl with your egg and cheese mix mixture. You had about a half cup of the hot pasta water. You don't want to scramble the raw eggs. You want them to blend with everything, so you stir like crazy wooden spoon, use the handle, tongus whatever. You spin everything
together about thirty seconds to a minute. Make sure the sauce is thickened, It's going to get thicker and thicker right before your eyes. Creamy, beautiful, no scrambling, just silky goodness. And then you serve it, okay in a warm bowl. You want to use a warm bowl. It makes a difference. Pasta waits for no one. We all know that. So you want to serve it up immediately while everything's still hot, dreamy, creamy, lovely. You can top it with extra cheese, cracked pepper, any
of those things. Gwanchelli's the traditional choice. If you can't find it, find block bacon, panchetta, something like that. Eggs. If you're pregnant or you have a compromise immune system like myself, maybe skip this one. Go for an Alfredo sauce and set instead. However, you can talk to your doctor and see if pasteurized eggs are okay for you to have, because those will work in this as well. No cream, and that makes it authentic, all right, really
quick apparol sprits. What a fantastic beverage. And I've only ever had them on occasion. My brother Craig makes a great one, but I haven't had one in a while. I had one in Italy did not drink a lot at all, but what a nice thing to have before food. So aperol spritz beloved Italian apertivo, and that is a pre food cocktail. It's got its roots in the Minetto
region of Italy. This during the eighteen hundreds you had Austrians and what they would do is they would dilute Italian wine with soda water and they called this spritzen and that's German for splash. So later you get prosecco, which is fabulous and Italian liqueurs lack apparol which is a bitter liqueur, slightly sweet, but very bitter finish, and it became these popular editions, culminating in the nineteen fifties in what we now celebrate is the apparol sprits. Very
basic recipe. I'm going to give it to you. It's a three two one combination with the specs here. It's this is approved by the International Bark Tenders Association. Very simple, three parts prosecco DOC, which is the classification there of the prosecco, two parts of apparol. Again, you can find this at your local grosser or liquor store. It is an Italian a bitter Italian liqueur. It's a great mixer used in a lot of drinks here. It's very simple, one splash of soda and one slice of orange as
the garnish there. So you place ice cubes in a stemmed balloon glass, so think big wine glass. Pour three parts of the prosecco, followed by pouring two parts of apparol and one ounce of soda. Then the slice of an orange there as it's garnish. It's pretty simple. It's just the ratios. They are three parts prosecco, two parts apparol, one part soda water, very simple and it's best served on ice. But man is it refreshing and delicious on the alcohol. So it's not like, you know, I didn't
feel it in any way, shape or form. I only had one. But it's a nice, generous poor and glass and it's just really something that gets you ready. I had it with pizza, but sometimes you have it with it just escaped my mind. It's really lovely. In Italy, they kind of before they go out, they go out for like appetizers. Where is it? It's not my mind, And it's a super lovely way to start the evening and just lovely and spring is here. It's this vibrant
orange color, kind of a slightly burnt orange color. It's gorgeous to look at and like I said, not real heavy, so something you might want to track