Spaghetti Carbonara

FairyElephant_2

If you need to follow your resipe, you can use double cream - just water it down to about the same consistancy as single.

I've used a white sauce falvoured with cheese to make 'carbonara' before, and it's been fine, and also used a tin of condensed mushroom soup for 'mushroom carbonara' which went down well!

SmlSave

I'm a real fan of using cream cheese as a base for my sauces - just remember to keep tasting it!

Towandassc

Hi,

as an Italian I can tell you that I am not using cream/double cream for a carbonara souce very often
I usually just add a bit of milk to the eggs I know that a lot of recepies will tell you that you need some cream but trust me a bit of milk will do; cream will of course make the souce richer but it's not necessary for a dicent souce.

Simona:o

frugalswan

I have never used cream of any kind or cream cheese in a carbonara. Just eggs and cheese, and some bacon and herbs (oh, and pasta ). It's one of my favourites.

Simona, thanks for that, I never thought of using a little milk with it. I'm going to try that and see how it works.

meanmarie

hotcookie...you should be able to get sardinian pecorino in a good cheese shop but it is very expensive (mouth watering at the thought that I will be in Sardinia this time next week!) but I find that any good Italian cheese is fine, I like Grana Padano and it is usually more reasonably priced than Parmesan.

marie

FairyElephant_2

meanmarie wrote: »

hotcookie...you should be able to get sardinian pecorino in a good cheese shop but it is very expensive (mouth watering at the thought that I will be in Sardinia this time next week!) but I find that any good Italian cheese is fine, I like Grana Padano and it is usually more reasonably priced than Parmesan.

marie

Hey Marie - I'll be in Sardinia next week too!!!!!

Never been before - bit of a Greekophile usually, me - if you have any tips on where to go/what to do and especially what to eat! Please let me know?

Sorry OP for hi-jacking your thread!

FE

Ily

Egg, good oil, pancetta and black pepper on top, easy peasy.

Adding cream, herbs, mushroom (some people do!) turns the carbonara into something that is not supposed to be. Similarly, I would say a carbonara is not a carbonara unless it has lashings of black pepper on top.

'Carbonara' means 'coal miner' or 'pasta sauce of the coal miner', if you like. It takes its name from the fact that the pepper sprinkled on the top makes it all 'soothy' like a piece of coal. In this sense, black pepper could be defined as the most important ingredient (it does after all explain the sauce's name).

By the same logic, adding cream, lots of cheese etc turns the sauce white and makes it look more like a 'chalk miner' than a 'coal miner' sauce. If you like it with cream by all means eat it that way (!!!), but that is not actual carbonara. Because chalk is 'gesso' in Italian, perhaps we should call those creamy sauces gessara (?). Probably a silly idea, but you get my drift :j

hotcookie101

meanmarie wrote: »

hotcookie...you should be able to get sardinian pecorino in a good cheese shop but it is very expensive (mouth watering at the thought that I will be in Sardinia this time next week!) but I find that any good Italian cheese is fine, I like Grana Padano and it is usually more reasonably priced than Parmesan.

marie

Yeah I tend to use grana padano too-its SOOO tasty :-)
Am incredibly jealous of Sardinia, went there as a child and loved it! Have fun eats lots of ice cream and pasta (calories don't count when you are on holiday do they? )

liz313

I make it and never use cream as I like to add a little butter and find that very tasty and less fattening than cream. My kids like it anyway and it is quite popular.