So I was looking for a new recipe for pasta alla carbonara, a common dish from central Italy where beaten eggs are whisked into freshly cooked pasta to create a sauce right before serving, and a little Googling came up with this recipe from David Leite, which I made tonight. It was quick, easy, authentic (no extra ingredients – more on that in a moment), and delicious. The only changes I made were to use 3 eggs without the extra yolk, and to make the sauce in the pasta pot rather than the skillet; stirring a pound of cooked pasta in a skillet is treacherous, and one thing you need to do to keep the eggs from scrambling is to keep the pasta moving. That’s just easier to do in a big pot than in a skillet, especially one with flared sides.
One other hit on page one of my Google results was this recipe by the Big Giant Head Girl, Giada de Laurentiis. Check the fourth ingredient: 2.5 cups of whipping cream. Say it with me, folks: There is no cream in carbonara sauce. It is creamy, but contains no cream. So Giada isn’t authentic, but we knew that already from the first time we heard her say spa-ghee-tee or open a jar of store-bought sauce. What’s worse is how incredibly unhealthy she’s made this dish: One pound of pasta plus one pound of chicken should mean six to eight servings, and by my calculations, her Chicken Carbonara has 35 to 40 grams of fat per serving (at six servings), two-thirds of which came from the whipping cream she added because she’s lazy. At least Raechel Ray can cook a little, but what the heck does Giada have swimming around in that enormous head of hers?
Have you seen the Iron Chef America battle between Ray/Batali and Laurentiis/Flay? Its pretty obvious that the pretty faces are lost in that kitchen, but at least Ray admits that she’s a cook, not a chef. If you do cookbooks at all, I’d check out Molto Italiano. There are some great regional and rustic Italian dishes in there.
Whew! I thought I was the only one who thought she had a huge head.
Paul – yes, saw that ICA episode. Both women looked overmatched; I can’t imagine what would happen if either was asked to helm a team herself. But Ray came off better than Giada did. I’ve seen the cookbook you mentioned at my MIL’s house – looked pretty solid, but I haven’t cooked anything from it.
Giada only appears to have a huge head because her body is so petite. I can’t fault her for this. Anyway, semi-unrelated, if you ever want legit Mexicana, try Three Amigos in Stoneham (if you haven’t already). Not only is the food great, but they let you bring in your own beer. It’s the next best thing to actually going to Juarez!! (Note: NEVER go to Juarez)
It is even more shoking that that Big Head Girl had real culinary education, in paris! She always wears some tops exposes fair amount of cleavage,and I guess I am the only guy who feels sick and tired of it.
(Oh by the way,I am establishing English blog in addition to my Korean one. The postings are not many now, but take a look some time…)
Oh by the way, there is one more Cabonara recipe in last month’s Esquire. But it was a bit modified and not so authentic.
I’ll stick up for Giada somewhat because I have cooked a few of her dishes that were outstanding. I can’t argue about the pasta carbonara point, but she can cook.
My buddy saw Giada in a NYC hotel. He said she is tiny and not nearly as cute as on the show.
Buzzkillers.
I really thought I was the only one who thought she looked like a weeble-wobble…Watching her show is a plus-minus thing for me…I enjoy some of her food, but I can’t stand to listen to her pronounce things.
Long Live Cat Cora!
Go Padres!
Come on Keith – that’s like saying Manny Ramirez is a poor hitter because he gets overmatched in an at-bat. You can’t judge her on the strength of one recipe. And also you have to take into consideration that she’s often dumbing down recipes in hopes the novices watching the show will attempt to cook the dish.
Coop: Trust me, I’m not judging Giada on one recipe. I’ve watched her show. She’s awful – mispronouncing names, using wrong ingredients, offering inaccurate food-science explanations, etc.
She is a lot better on the Today Show than with FN.
Am disappointed in disparaging remarks about Giada. If any of you tried her recipes you would find them doable and delicious. The reason I came across this blog was because I was questioning the authenticity of using cream. I find Mario an exemplary chef but do not find him attractive. Does this give me license to insult him???
Sallie:
Giada’s appearance is clearly part of how she’s marketed, and part of why she’s become successful. As such, it’s fair game. Mario’s appearance has had nothing to do with his success as a chef or as a TV host.
Giada’s food disgusts me. It is inauthentic and the techniques she shows on TV are often wrong. The fact that she would put cream in a dish and call it alla carbonara underlines the point.
Thank you for pointing out Giada’s cooking 101 mistakes. I have tried a couple of her recipes and I came to realize that Giada is not on TV for her cooking skills, she is on because of her “Décolletage”. She needs to buy better push-up bras because she doesnt have too much to work with there. I don’t see what is funny about her head other than it being extremely vacuous. I also have it from an insider that she is a screaming shrew when the cameras are not rolling.