Classic carbonara

The blog has already featured a few recipes for carbonara, but this really is the most classic one. Compared with the earlier versions, I think it also shows a certain evolution in Prymitywna Kuchnia. I’ll leave the Instagram account aside. It’s completely new and something I couldn’t previously have imagined, because I think — oh, I’m going to get it in the neck for this — Instagram is pure evil. Above all, an evil that impoverishes our picture of the world. Yes, impoverishes. Everyone on Instagram wants to look their best. Even PrymitywnaKuchnia.pl, as you can see.

Except that, as I’ve already said, in my kitchen it’s a kind of evolution. The result of changes, progress, perhaps even greater familiarity with cooking, and probably also with choosing food or even — heavens above — presenting it. I’m not saying that’s suddenly the most important thing, but there is something to it.

Instagram, though — which, to be blunt, I’ve somehow adapted to — or rather most of its users, especially the ones called influencers, is largely not a picture of evolution but an illusion and a pretence. We all know how many photographs an Instagram girl has to take before she posts one. In the old days, more than one photography shop would have run out of film. That isn’t what I want to discuss here. Nor is it the worst of it: someone has the time and feels the need, fine. The biggest problem is using that “position”, particularly among young people, to sell them rubbish. That rubbish might be a supposedly luxurious brand manufactured out of thin air — we’ve recently had two fairly high-profile online affairs involving a woman called, for reasons I still don’t understand, Mercedes, and some brand of supposedly fancy chains from Alibaba. Most often, though, the rubbish being sold is simply a set of ideas or, just as bad, a lifestyle.

Watching it while fully aware of the pretence and the rubbish can, of course, be a form of entertainment. Treating it only that way might be normal, and therefore acceptable. But believing that what we see there is true is the very worst evil of the so-called internet.

So why does this recipe show my kitchen evolving? I mentioned experience earlier. I think that’s what matters most when it comes to understanding and taking the simplest things seriously. Above all, not being afraid of them. That’s exactly the case with this carbonara. I used to think that a great dish needed lots of ingredients, that you couldn’t possibly create perfection with literally 5 or 6. Back then, a good few years ago, if not a decade or more, I also paid less attention to ingredient quality. This evolution has changed that. It’s why I now think this carbonara is the best.

Yesterday we watched a film: rather monotonous and simple, although interesting in its very obvious way. I think it may be the latest work by the now rather elderly Mr Clint Eastwood. Its Polish title is “Przemytnik”, meaning “The Smuggler”, whereas the English “The Mule” gets much closer to the point. There’s no point trying to work out why the Polish distributor changed a perfectly apt title. That is always secret knowledge, an unfathomable mystery. The film itself, however, tells a simple story about life’s simplicity. It won’t be a spoiler, even if you haven’t seen it, to say it’s about growing up, and about how there’s always time for that. Whether you’re 20, 40 or even 80, as in the film. Growing into the things that matter most, which seem the simplest. It’s easy enough to guess what is simplest and therefore most important in life. That doesn’t mean it’s easiest, of course: “simple” referred to ways of thinking, not to how easy something is to maintain or preserve. Still, if you’re going to watch it, I won’t spoil anything more.

That’s the evolution I’m talking about. We all probably have it in our own time: some earlier, some too late. Prymitywna is evolving too, now looking for flavour in things that may seem simple. So I warmly recommend this carbonara, with a special dedication to a friend currently in Batumi who seems unable, despite trying very hard, to find what’s simplest. Recommended.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Serves: two people

Calories: apparently 100 grams of calories contain 239 carbonaras, but that sounds like fake news 😉

Ingredients for a simple, classic Italian carbonara — without cream, of course:

• pasta (linguine or spaghetti works best, in my opinion),
• 6 slices of pancetta or smoked bacon,
• 4 small cloves of garlic,
• 1 egg,
• 5 teaspoons of grated Parmesan,
• freshly ground black pepper,
• olive oil,
• fresh parsley
• salt.

How to make a very classic carbonara:

I fried the thinly sliced bacon — pancetta — in literally a drop of olive oil. After a minute, I added the finely chopped garlic. I stirred constantly to stop it burning, for roughly 4–5 minutes. The garlic should turn translucent and take on a lightly golden colour. I cooked the pasta in lightly salted water, of course, and drained it. You can do that beforehand, before frying the bacon and garlic. I put it back in the cooking pot, which I’d dried with a kitchen towel, and added a little olive oil and freshly ground black pepper. In went the fried bacon and garlic, and I mixed it thoroughly.

I beat the egg with the Parmesan: 3 teaspoons, keeping the other 2 to sprinkle over the finished dish.

Then I turned the “gas” on low — on my induction hob, 3–4 on a scale of 1–9 — and added the egg beaten with Parmesan. I poured it into the pasta and stirred vigorously while continuing to heat it gently. After roughly a minute, the carbonara was ready to serve. If you mix it well when adding the egg and Parmesan, it will develop a wonderful creamy consistency. The sauce should be just right. I served it sprinkled with finely chopped fresh parsley and the remaining Parmesan. And there we are: our simple, typically Italian carbonara is ready. Enjoy 🙂