There are many theories on the origin of the Carbonara. Some people claim that it was created many centuries ago, others say that’s a recent invention. This week I’ve heard that it might have started during the Second World War, as a mix created out of the Italian and North American culture. Supposedly, the American allies brought the bacon and eggs and added that to the Italian pasta. I don’t know if that’s how it all started, but it might be 😊.
I enjoy pasta, even though I have never kneaded it from scratch (this time I’m also using dry spaghetti). Regularly, I prepare a vegan version of the Spaghetti alla Bolognese (pasta with meat). I also like a lot lasagne, cannelloni, and any other stuffed (or not!) pasta. In the coming weeks, I intend to go back to other pasta-based recipes.
Recipe of the Week: Spaghetti alla Carbonara
I tried my first Carbonara recipe more than 10 years ago. Back then, I did the regular one: with bacon, cream, and cheese. This time I’m doing the vegan version (all the recipes in this project are going to be vegan!). I’ve always liked pasta, in all its shapes, forms, and varieties. For this one, I bought a package of Italian spaghetti. Here’s a picture of a few other products I bought for future recipes:
Most pasta is originally vegan, so that was the easy part. In the Carbonara, you have a creamy sauce and then the bacon pieces. I imagined that I would do the bacon fake meat with tofu, but I wasn’t sure about the sauce. I decided to go with a suggestion provided by a long-term Italian vegan, who directed me to the Twitch channel of Simone D’Ambrosio. I followed his version, and I was very delighted with the result.
This was the first time that I learned and followed a recipe via Twitch. Something I really liked about this resource is that it was long (almost one hour and a half). Simone is very lively and makes the recipes super fun to watch. He talks a lot throughout the preparation, and that was great. I really like the vibe of his transmissions. One thing that confused me a bit was the ingredient list (it’s showed only on the video, there’s no text version of it on Twitch, or at least I wasn’t able to find it). The other thing that was confusing was that he gave two options to make the cream (cauliflower-based and tofu-based), but the recipe also asked for tofu to make the fake meat. So, in the beginning, I didn’t know why was he using cauliflower (it wasn’t in the list), or if the tofu quantities listed on the screen were supposed to be used in the cream or for the fake meat. As I kept watching, it got sorted out, though.
I did the cream with tofu, instead of cauliflower. I should have probably added more water to the sauce in the end, but I like the result anyway. On top of the pasta, I sprinkled cashew shredded cheese (homemade!). One thing I would try in the future is adding some (vegan) bacon flavoring powder to the tofu.
New Vocabulary
This week I wasn’t able to extract new vocabulary from the recipe as I did with the last YouTube video. That’s another downside of Twitch for a language learner. You can’t get subtitles as you normally do with a YouTube video. In any case, I was exposed to new words, ingredients, and phrases. Something I regularly do when looking for recipes is watching multiple videos before deciding which one I’ll do. At times, I might even mix recipes (don’t try that at home! 😁). For the next recipe, I intend to go back to YouTube.
That’s all for now! 😊
