$174 vs $10 Pasta Carbonara - Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients _ Epicurious

Okey dokey .

Okey dokey .

Thank goodness , I'm Emma .

Hi , I'm Frank .

I'm a professional chef and these are my $174 pasta carbonara ingredients .

Hi , I'm Lorenzo and I'm a home cook and these are my $10 pasta carbonara ingredients .

This guy like I didn't know that was gonna happen .

Peas and cream .

That is some cheese .

I was planning on making a homemade guitarra pasta carbonara with a 24 month aged Parmesan cheese .

I had some double O flour and some farm fresh eggs to make my own pasta by hand .

I have never made pasta in my life other than boiling the water and shoving it right in .

I had some which is super fancy bacon and some premium parmesan and pecorino cheese .

Wow .

That is you stinky along with a lovely olive oil and an even lovelier bottle of red wine .

Am I putting wine in this ?

It was gonna be rich , creamy and absolutely spectacular with Lorenzo's recipe .

I have some ingredients you might find in your pantry or your local grocery store .

These may be simple ingredients , both a little technique and a little chef magic .

I can make it beautiful .

If I had a guess this would probably cost around 10 bucks .

I'm the one who does the grocery shopping .

I know the groceries if I had to guess this would cost about $222 .

Well , that's a very expensive plate of pasta .

This is Frank's recipe book .

No GPS whatsoever .

No , can connect the dots .

No ABC S Lorenzo .

Remember this pasta is not all that hard pasta .

Carbonara is a pretty simple dish .

But I don't know about this situation .

Worry about your technique .

Don't worry about so much of the ingredients .

This is the part where I call rose rose , rose .

Actually , Lorenzo , you're on your own this time .

You're joking .

Rose couldn't make it today .

So time to leave the nest .

Little chick .

What the fuck ?

Yes .

Let's do it .

Yes , let's do it .

OK .

I hate you .

All the biggest challenge .

Right off the bat is homemade spaghetti .

I usually just scan it in the grocery .

Oh I'm gonna have Lorenzo do this granny style and by granny style .

I mean , he's gonna make a pile of his flour .

Now we've got Manza , he's gonna make a volcano .

We're gonna crack our eggs in there a little bit of salt and then we're gonna whisk our eggs with a fork .

We don't want our volcano erupting volcano .

Save once we get to a point where the eggs aren't gonna run out anymore , we start to bring our flour in and then we start to k need never done this before .

And uh fairly simple so far and we're gonna need our dough until it's nice and smooth .

Like my bald head .

That's cute as heck .

When we need the flour , we're really working the gluten and the gluten is really tough .

And this is why we let the pasta rest for about 20 minutes so that it's easier to roll out and we get nice kind of long strands of spaghetti .

I'm gonna let it rest for a while .

From Lorenzo .

I have some peas and Parmesan .

When Carbonara came across the big ocean , people decide they want to peas in it and I'm gonna have a little fun with it .

I'm gonna dehydrate them both .

This is gonna be the topping for my finished dish .

Like a little bit of a garnish , a little bit of Sprinkle , a little bit of flair .

Basically .

What a dehydrated does is it takes the moisture out of things with a small amount of heat and some fans give it a shake to get it nice and flat and even get my peas onto the mat as well .

These are frozen peas .

I'm gonna put them in one single layer because if they're on top of each other , they're not gonna dry evenly .

And then these puppies are gonna go into my dehydrator dehydration takes a while .

So that's why we're doing it first .

This is gonna be in there about six hours .

My pasta dough has been resting for a while .

I need to roll it out .

First off , let me flour my table here .

Ok .

Oh , that's a nice little bite .

It took out of that .

Yeah .

Let's see what to do , what to do , what to do .

Uh , trying to work this .

It's a workout .

I think this is good .

I mean , it is a very thin sheet .

I'm gonna do another one .

Hello ?

I don't know if you're supposed to do uh it like this at all .

I have no idea .

Pasta .

Let's cut these out .

So I'm gonna have a little fun today and play with the whole idea of carbonara .

I'm gonna make a carbonara frittata .

Classically .

A frittata is a baked omelet .

It's gonna be like carbonara but in a pie cut slice makes sense .

Right ?

One thing you wanna make sure when you cook dry pasta you want the water to be salty , not so salty that it's not edible , but you want it to be sea salty .

And I want it to be in a full rolling boil .

If it's not boiling , it's gonna clump together and stick together .

Everybody into the pool .

Rigatoni is one of my favorite cuts of pasta .

I like the , the bite it has .

I like that .

The sauce kind of gets stuck inside of it too until it comes back to a boil .

You gotta keep it stirring to keep it separate .

And so it doesn't stick to the bottom .

This is gonna take approximately 10 to 12 minutes .

Ok .

May I look on top of smoke ?

What that , what I thought I was gonna have a ranker .

Oh , I just press it down a Guitarra .

Ok .

I see .

I'm just gonna get started .

The guitarra is a contraption that has guitar strings .

That's where it gets the idea .

Flour liberally .

Yeah .

I mean , I don't know .

And what you're gonna do is you're gonna take your flat pasta sheet , put it on top and you get something that looks like a rolling pin and you push it through .

Cool , cool , cool , cool .

Wow .

Homemade spaghetti , ala guitar .

Get out of town .

That's awesome .

How fun is that ?

People ?

Thank you .

Guitar .

How do you test pasta ?

You take a piece of pasta and you test it right .

This still has a little bit of a white ring in it .

It's a little before Dante .

But I'm ok with that because the pasta is gonna sit for a minute and it's gonna continue to cook .

Let's strain it out .

Give it a quick rinse just to kind of slow down the cooking .

All the Italians out there .

Don't get upset with me .

Normally you don't want to put oil on pasta because the sauce won't stick .

But I'm not saucing this pasta .

I make it into a frittata .

So I'm not worried about the oil .

The oil is gonna have flavor and it's gonna stop my pasta from sticking together and getting to be clumpy and we're just gonna give it a quick toss .

So it doesn't stick together .

This method that I'm doing is totally different than you would for normal carbonara , right ?

This is Frank going off on a tangent .

It's gonna be OK .

It looks like got some pork .

Jowl gule is actually the jowls of the pig that are cured gule is salty fatty .

And it's traditionally what we use in carbonara .

Cured meat has a lot of salt , spices on it that you're supposed to take off .

I believe .

I like to cut my Guoli into Lardon , which is a French term for kind of thick matchsticks .

I don't want it just to be a flavoring .

I want it to be a nice component of the dish that gives you some like nice heartiness .

I like to start with just a little bit of olive oil in my pan .

I'm gonna throw those pieces of Guoli in there .

Wow .

It smells so good already .

Render them out until they're just slightly brown on the outside .

And we've got a lot of fat in the pan .

He's gonna save the Guoli that's cooked and he's saving the fat because the fat's going in there too fat equals flavor .

I'm gonna turn the heat off and move on to the next step .

Lorenzer gave me bacon .

Carbonara needs to have some sort of pig product .

Bacon works for me .

I'm gonna use a little olive oil just to start my bacon out .

This is just a personal preference of mine .

I'm just gonna , my bacon into nice strips a little thicker because I want to see the bacon in my dish right into my pan .

I'm gonna use everything .

I'm using the bacon .

I'm gonna use the fat .

I'm also gonna use the pan .

I think the bacon's good .

It's sitting in its fat and I'm gonna leave it in its fat .

So it's gonna carry over .

Cook a little , move it to a cooler spot on my stove and just let it sit in the pan until we're ready to make this frittata .

OK .

So I'm gonna start prepping my sauce and I have these lovely chunks of cheese Parmesan Rego and this is the Pecorino .

I'm just gonna take a chunk off here .

I'll probably need more but for now let's uh do that .

Wow .

Oh , that smell .

I'll get more in a second .

OK .

This is the 24 month aged parmesan .

That is delicious .

Mm Lorenzo sent me cream for this cream is not something that normally goes into carbonara .

That creaminess comes from the technique not from actually using milk product or cream in your dish .

So what I decided to do is make a custard .

That'll be the base of our frittata .

First thing I'm gonna do is crack my eggs .

I think I'm gonna do the eggs first off .

Two holes .

One , I'm probably not gonna use all this cream .

I don't want it to stop my custard from setting .

So I'm gonna add about half right now .

Nice couple of big pinches of salt .

Uh Lorenzo sent me pre ground black pepper .

I tend not to use this in my house .

I found when you grind your own pepper , you get more fragrance , you get a little more heat .

So I'm gonna add a little extra black pepper just to give it a little like right ?

And all we gotta do now is break up our yolks and blend this really well , I am going to these together .

There it is .

That's our custard , nice and peppery .

OK .

So this portion is complete because Lorenzo was so generous with the cream .

I'm gonna make a garnish with it .

This is going to be a savory black pepper whipped cream .

You gotta try it right .

We gotta throw it out there .

I'm going to season it up lightly .

I want this sweet cream to kind of come through .

You can see my cream is starting to bubble away .

I'm gonna shut it off .

I'm gonna add a nice helping of my black pepper and I'm just gonna let this steep for about five minutes .

We'll extract some of those black pepper flavors and some of the floral notes of the black pepper as well as a little bit of heat .

Uh Let's get this strained out if there's a few black pepper flacks in there or if it has a little color in it .

It's fine .

It's not a big deal .

Let's get this in the fridge and chill it completely .

I guess I'm supposed to toast some pepper coins about , let's do about like a tablespoon of stuff .

Let's see .

You're gonna toast your peppercorns because when you toast them , it brings out some of those nice essential oils and makes them a little more fragrant and toasty .

Ok , I can smell the pepper coming off of this .

I think it's done .

It's a really quick toast .

We are gonna put this in .

It smells fantastic .

You guys , my pepper infused cream is completely chilled .

I got myself a cold bowl .

Let's whip it up .

Uh Just throw it in there .

Make sure like if there's any sort of flex in the bottom .

If there's too many flecks , you can just leave them there .

A whisk is meant to produce bubbles .

So if I tilt my bowl like this , what do you see ?

Lots of bubbles ?

Right .

It's almost like an up and over where you're seeing lots of air bubbles .

We're getting nice and fluffy .

All right .

I think we're there .

Put my whisk in form a peak , see how the peak points up , firm peaks or stiff peaks .

So our black pepper whipped cream is done .

Let's put it in the fridge until we're ready to plate .

Uh Here we go .

Wow , this is old school , isn't it ?

I'm just gonna add half of this .

I'll save a little bit later .

I love adding more pepper to my carbonara , but let's go half for now .

It's not even cooked yet .

You guys ?

And it looks fantastic .

Ok .

Really ?

The next step is me getting the pasta cooking and putting the stuff together .

Our peas and cheese are done .

They've been in here for about six hours .

Look at them , those little nuggets of happiness and let's check out the cheese .

The cheese is a little drier .

It still has a little bit of that .

The fat to it .

That's what I'm looking for .

I want a little bit of kind of salty crunch to this .

Now , I have my peas .

I really just want to kind of beat them up a little and so they're not gonna break anyone's teeth .

I don't really want it to be a dust .

I just want it to be a nice crunchy kind of bite at the end .

All right .

That looks sufficiently cracked open .

Let's go right into this bowl and here we have it , dehydrated peas and dehydrated cheese are garnish for our carbonara for top .

I am presenting you my mis and place , get your m and places together , me and make sure you have everything you need .

You don't want to stop to have to go get a pair of tongs .

What I have here is first of all , my boiling water , which I will salt with a fancy sea salt , the ocean and the sea .

Here we go .

Oh , look at that time to assemble our carbonara frittata .

Say that 10 times fast .

All right .

Let's get our custard in the bowl .

I am going to add pasta .

I don't think I'm gonna use it all bacon with all the fat .

Don't wash this pan .

Put it aside just like this .

Let's give this a stir and then we're gonna put in a nice helping of cheese .

I think I'll start with just two little nests of my fresh guitar because it's gonna cook really quick .

So I'm gonna do it quickly and I'd stir right away as I burn my left hand .

When we finally put this dish together , the eggs , the cheese , the pasta , pasta , water , the fat is all gonna emulsify into this glorious creamy sauce .

I'm gonna put the pasta right in .

It only took a couple of minutes guys .

It's ok if I use to have a little bit of uh , water in here because I'm gonna add water .

As a matter of fact , I saved my pan that has all that nice bacon fat in it and try even everything out .

I want the pasta to be evenly dispersed .

So that when I cut into it , there's not just a super eggy part with no pasta .

My pan was nice and hot .

It's bubbling away .

I'm gonna get a nice crispy brown bottom .

Let's get it in the oven .

Let us throw our Guan in and our rendered oil .

Lovely , lovely .

I'm just gonna hold it and let it drip .

I'm using all of it in case our sauce is a little too thick .

We wanna take a little of that seasoned pasta water and put it in just to make our sauce creamy .

Oh , it's getting creamy .

It doesn't get better as it sits .

So make sure your guests are ready to eat .

I don't want any lumpy dry cold pasta chihuahua .

All right .

It's been about 20 minutes .

You can see that .

It's nice and bubbly and brown and crunchy on top .

We wanna let this set for about 10 minutes before we cut into it .

So it's not a sloppy mess .

I'm gonna stand here intently staring at the pasta frittata until it's time .

It is that time to play guys .

Oh my gosh , sorry .

Sorry .

I'm gonna do the old surgeon style cut drum roll .

Please .

Look at that .

Look .

Oh my gosh .

I'm so happy about this .

The back is nice and crunchy .

The pasta and the egg is holding everything together .

The cream and everything got into the rigatoni .

I'm gonna say this is a winner before I even finish it .

I'll clean it up in a minute .

Pepper .

I like adding pepper and then , oh my gosh , why not ?

More cheese ?

We're gonna take that black pepper cream and we're gonna make a Cornell .

I was taught the teaspoon method .

Shake them off , get your cream and just kind of go and make your football shape .

Just a little dollop right there .

Last but not least , let's make this ultra fancier and finish with some delicious , beautiful extra version olive oil .

Take some of our nice crunchy cheese and then some of our nice dried out peas and there you have it .

Carbonara frittata .

I bet Lorenzo did just fine .

It's getting harder and harder to stump him lately .

So this is my take on chef Frank's pasta carbonara from the beautiful ingredients that were used .

I don't think I could mess this up .

Yeah , I'm curious what he did with my ingredients though .

Right buddy .

It's been so long .

Frank Frank Frank .

Frank Frank Frank .

Wow .

Wow , you are too fancy , man .

What did you do ?

Uh Frittata Carbonaro .

I just wanna try it .

Is it ?

OK ?

I tried it .

I try .

I'm not even gonna use the knife .

I'm just gonna dig in because I'm a sandwich .

You just wanna , it does taste like you're eating in a different form of a bite .

It has all the elements .

Here's the flavor , black pepper cream , steep some black pepper in heavy cream .

Like a tea .

Let it cool , strain it out .

Whip it up good , man .

You wanna try mine .

Let's try .

This looks creamy .

The bacon is cut the right size .

I want it to be like a nice meaty bite .

I was never afraid that this would be too much of a challenge for you .

OK ?

It's gonna be a big bite .

Yeah , I'll get it just , I don't do it .

Yeah .

Oh , my God .

Hm .

Hm .

Hm .

Oh , that pork throws it to another level .

The pasta is cooked perfectly .

It's beautiful .

It has a very old European taste to it .

The quality of your ingredients really matters and your technique matters .

You hit it , you get it right .

So , the sauce is creamy without any cream .

Right .

And that's the whole idea .

It's the cheese , it's the fat , it's the water .

I do recall giving you something else .

Just like the Italians .

You sit down , you eat , you have a glass of wine .

Yes .

So let's do it .

Be time for friends .

Cheers to you .

Oh , that is a nice glass of wine .

That is nice .

That is really nice .