Speaker 1: So being in Italy, of course it's really strange. You
Speaker 1: think you'd eat everything in sight and all that you'd
Speaker 1: gain weight. I actually lost weight in Italy. And it's
Speaker 1: an ongoing joke that happens with a lot of people
Speaker 1: because one you're walking everywhere and two you're eating habits
Speaker 1: changed there. What is it? Are they eight hours ahead
Speaker 1: or eight hours behind? Always forget? And so your little
Speaker 1: cattiwampus when you get there. But we ate really good food.
Speaker 1: And two things that stood out to me I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about for Technique of the Week, and that
Speaker 1: is spaghetti carbonara and apparol sprits, which is a beverage
Speaker 1: that has often had before your meal there in Italy.
Speaker 1: Not because we didn't have fantastic pizza we did, or
Speaker 1: other pastas we did, or other dishes we did. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big drinker when I travel. I'm not really
Speaker 1: a big drinker at home. Okay, Ita lyas ahead, thanks
Speaker 1: Kaala by eight hours. So you know, I like to
Speaker 1: have a drink when I'm in my shop working not
Speaker 1: with power tools, and when I'm grilling. Those are kind
Speaker 1: of things when I like to tip a glass or
Speaker 1: something like that. But when i'm traveling. I'm not really
Speaker 1: big on that, other depending on the circumstances I'm in
Speaker 1: and things like that. So I didn't drink a whole
Speaker 1: lot at a little prosecco here, a tiny bit of
Speaker 1: champagne at the wedding, and that was about it. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any cocktails with the exception of an apparel sprits,
Speaker 1: So I'll get into that shortly. Let's start with real
Speaker 1: deal spaghetti carbonara. I have been called or texted many
Speaker 1: a times, no joke with people saying, I'm at this
Speaker 1: restaurant and I'm having the best pasta sauce I've ever had,
Speaker 1: And inevitably I'll go what color is it and they'll
Speaker 1: say yellowish, and I say that's cobonara. Because there is
Speaker 1: something so special and magical about this sauce and it's
Speaker 1: not difficult, so I thought we'd do that. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about real carbonara. It's this rich, creamy and silky, smooth
Speaker 1: sauce that just encapsulates completely in gloves every piece of pasta.
Speaker 1: It just really marries like no other sauce. To me,
Speaker 1: it should have zero cream in it. The creaminess is
Speaker 1: not from cream. It comes from just the eggs, comes
Speaker 1: from the cheese, a little bit of starchy pasta, water
Speaker 1: or what chefs referred to as liquid gold. And that's it.
Speaker 1: It's simple, it's pure, it's delicious, and i'll break it
Speaker 1: down for you. This is for serving of four people,
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five grams of guanchale. Now, guanchale
Speaker 1: is pork jowls. It's a it's a it's a cured
Speaker 1: meat and it comes from the cheeks, the faces, flavor people.
Speaker 1: The thing is for a long time, from the seventies
Speaker 1: till about I think twenty thirteen twenty fourteen or so,
Speaker 1: a lot of Italian processed or cured meats pork were
Speaker 1: not legally allowed in the United States. Has to do
Speaker 1: with an illness that was found in the concern of
Speaker 1: bringing that illness here to the States. It's harder to
Speaker 1: find than most other things, but when you can find it,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic to good order as well. So guanchale is
Speaker 1: like bacon, but it's not smoky, it's sweet, it's salty.
Speaker 1: You cut it into batons, these short batons, and it
Speaker 1: just has this great shoe factor and really goes up
Speaker 1: against the silkiness of the in this case the bright yellow,
Speaker 1: delicious sauce. So two large eggs than two egg yolks,
Speaker 1: one hundred grams of parmigiano reggiano. You can use pecorino,
Speaker 1: You can use parmesan, but you want it finally grated.
Speaker 1: A quarter teaspoon of black pepper, freshly cracked is going
Speaker 1: to be the best friend here. Four grams of spaghetti
Speaker 1: pasta dried, one tablespoon of kosher or cooking salt that
Speaker 1: you're gonna put that in your pasta water, of course,
Speaker 1: and really this to doesn't need any extra salt between
Speaker 1: the pasta water being properly salted is Most chefs will
Speaker 1: tell you pasta water should be salty like the ocean,
Speaker 1: so kicking it up over that tablespoon is fine as well.
Speaker 1: And also that guanchale is going to kick up the
Speaker 1: salt content. You want half cup reserved pasta cooking water
Speaker 1: that is liquid gold. The starches in there are going
Speaker 1: to thicken that sauce in a way nothing else can optional.
Speaker 1: You can use some garlic, a garlic clove finally minced.
Speaker 1: Some people put chopped parsley or extra cheese for garnish.
Speaker 1: That's fine as well, carbonara, which is a fantastic sauce.
Speaker 1: Just getting back from Italy. The two things that really
Speaker 1: stood out was carbonara is just not something we have
Speaker 1: as much here. We tend to have red sauces here,
Speaker 1: or Alfredo, a cheese sauce, or a mornee like a
Speaker 1: cheese sauce that you'd have with mac and cheese, that
Speaker 1: type of thing. So you want to cut the guanchale
Speaker 1: into these little batons about a half centimein or thicker,
Speaker 1: so they get real gold and crispy. They're wonderful. You
Speaker 1: want to grate the cheese. Finally, grate your cheese. Get
Speaker 1: that microplane out. This is the time to use it.
Speaker 1: You don't want to use pregraded stuff when it comes
Speaker 1: to this because it won't melt right. Whisk the sauce
Speaker 1: base in a big bowl, really wonderful, big enough to
Speaker 1: toss all the pasta you wish together. Whisk together the
Speaker 1: eggs these a raw by the way, the yolks, the cheese,
Speaker 1: and the pepper. You get this. This is your creamy
Speaker 1: sauce base. No heat needed just yet. You boil the pasta.
Speaker 1: Get a big pot of boiling water about four liters,
Speaker 1: and you add salt. Cook your spaghetti until it's al dente,
Speaker 1: it's a little toothy in the center. And then just
Speaker 1: before draining, you scoop out one cup of that hotch
Speaker 1: starts you water, because that is liquid gold and you're
Speaker 1: gonna use that to thicken up this sauce. You cook
Speaker 1: the guanchale, and once that cooks, you toss your guanchli
Speaker 1: into a pan. You don't need oil. You cook that up.
Speaker 1: It's delicious and it's unfat. Get it golden and crispy.
Speaker 1: You can toss garlic in there later, if that's your thing.
Speaker 1: You bring it all together. You drain your pasta, then
Speaker 1: immediately add it to the pan with your guanchali. You
Speaker 1: toss it around. Pasta gets coated and glorious fat. You
Speaker 1: tip the whole thing, pasta, guancholi, all of that flavorful
Speaker 1: fat into a bowl with your egg and cheese mix mixture.
Speaker 1: You had about a half cup of the hot pasta water.
Speaker 1: You don't want to scramble the raw eggs. You want
Speaker 1: them to blend with everything, so you stir like crazy
Speaker 1: wooden spoon, use the handle, tongus whatever. You spin everything
Speaker 1: together about thirty seconds to a minute. Make sure the
Speaker 1: sauce is thickened, It's going to get thicker and thicker
Speaker 1: right before your eyes. Creamy, beautiful, no scrambling, just silky goodness.
Speaker 1: And then you serve it, okay in a warm bowl.
Speaker 1: You want to use a warm bowl. It makes a difference.
Speaker 1: Pasta waits for no one. We all know that. So
Speaker 1: you want to serve it up immediately while everything's still hot, dreamy, creamy, lovely.
Speaker 1: You can top it with extra cheese, cracked pepper, any
Speaker 1: of those things. Gwanchelli's the traditional choice. If you can't
Speaker 1: find it, find block bacon, panchetta, something like that. Eggs.
Speaker 1: If you're pregnant or you have a compromise immune system
Speaker 1: like myself, maybe skip this one. Go for an Alfredo
Speaker 1: sauce and set instead. However, you can talk to your
Speaker 1: doctor and see if pasteurized eggs are okay for you
Speaker 1: to have, because those will work in this as well.
Speaker 1: No cream, and that makes it authentic, all right, really
Speaker 1: quick apparol sprits. What a fantastic beverage. And I've only
Speaker 1: ever had them on occasion. My brother Craig makes a
Speaker 1: great one, but I haven't had one in a while.
Speaker 1: I had one in Italy did not drink a lot
Speaker 1: at all, but what a nice thing to have before food.
Speaker 1: So aperol spritz beloved Italian apertivo, and that is a
Speaker 1: pre food cocktail. It's got its roots in the Minetto
Speaker 1: region of Italy. This during the eighteen hundreds you had
Speaker 1: Austrians and what they would do is they would dilute
Speaker 1: Italian wine with soda water and they called this spritzen
Speaker 1: and that's German for splash. So later you get prosecco,
Speaker 1: which is fabulous and Italian liqueurs lack apparol which is
Speaker 1: a bitter liqueur, slightly sweet, but very bitter finish, and
Speaker 1: it became these popular editions, culminating in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: in what we now celebrate is the apparol sprits. Very
Speaker 1: basic recipe. I'm going to give it to you. It's
Speaker 1: a three two one combination with the specs here. It's
Speaker 1: this is approved by the International Bark Tenders Association. Very simple,
Speaker 1: three parts prosecco DOC, which is the classification there of
Speaker 1: the prosecco, two parts of apparol. Again, you can find
Speaker 1: this at your local grosser or liquor store. It is
Speaker 1: an Italian a bitter Italian liqueur. It's a great mixer
Speaker 1: used in a lot of drinks here. It's very simple,
Speaker 1: one splash of soda and one slice of orange as
Speaker 1: the garnish there. So you place ice cubes in a
Speaker 1: stemmed balloon glass, so think big wine glass. Pour three
Speaker 1: parts of the prosecco, followed by pouring two parts of
Speaker 1: apparol and one ounce of soda. Then the slice of
Speaker 1: an orange there as it's garnish. It's pretty simple. It's
Speaker 1: just the ratios. They are three parts prosecco, two parts apparol,
Speaker 1: one part soda water, very simple and it's best served
Speaker 1: on ice. But man is it refreshing and delicious on
Speaker 1: the alcohol. So it's not like, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: feel it in any way, shape or form. I only
Speaker 1: had one. But it's a nice, generous poor and glass
Speaker 1: and it's just really something that gets you ready. I
Speaker 1: had it with pizza, but sometimes you have it with
Speaker 1: it just escaped my mind. It's really lovely. In Italy,
Speaker 1: they kind of before they go out, they go out
Speaker 1: for like appetizers. Where is it? It's not my mind,
Speaker 1: And it's a super lovely way to start the evening
Speaker 1: and just lovely and spring is here. It's this vibrant
Speaker 1: orange color, kind of a slightly burnt orange color. It's
Speaker 1: gorgeous to look at and like I said, not real heavy,
Speaker 1: so something you might want to track