Carbonara
A classic method is to add the egg + cheese mixture to the pasta and cook it gently. See 날이 흐려서 만들어보는, 누구도 실패할 수가 없는 까르보나라 by 김밀란, Carbonara by Antonio Carluccio, or How to Make Classic Carbonara by Jamie Oliver.
A more modern method is “cooking” the sauce separately from the pasta by using the Bain marie technique. As explained by Alex in the video I Try To Master The World’s Best Carbonara Pasta (full recipe), this can be combined with the whisking & fat to produce hollandaise-like sauce.
Key points
- Use Guanciale if possible. Otherwise Pancetta or Bacon. Render the fat with low heat.
- Don’t put too much salt in the pasta water because guanciale and cheese are salty.
- Make a mixture of egg yolks + cheese (either pecorino or pecorino + grano/parmesan)
- Classic
- Cook the pasta in a bit of fat + pasta water (more than usual)
- Turn off the heat and release the heat before putting the egg + cheese mixture to avoid scrambled egg.
- After mixing well, turn on the heat again to create sauce.
- Bain-marie
- Bowl on top of the hot water -> whisk the mixture until it becomes the sauce (~160F). you can add the fat slowly as well.
- Put the cooked pasta, fat, and mix again on hot water.