Spaghetti Carbonara, Papparadelle Carbonara, Bucatini Carbonara…yes, but Risotto Carbonara? When I read the menu at Davanti Enoteca in San Diego, CA I couldn’t believe my eyes. Why had I never heard of this before? And yes, I ate the whole thing. I really wanted to recreate this dish when we got home from our vaca! I think I got pretty close! It was delicious and creamy without any cream(how a real carbonara should be). It’s good, you should try it.
Start off by dicing up your onion…
First I plank it, two horizontal cuts, one above the other. This helps make a nice small dice.
Then I cut vertically…
And then turn it and cut it across the cuts, sounds complicated, but it’s pretty easy and worth it to get a perfect dice!
Then dice the garlic…I like a lot of garlic.
Now the BACON!!!!!! You should really use pancetta because bacon is smoked and that is not traditional to carbonara, but bacon tastes really good too.
Now throw the bacon into a hot pan with the butter and olive oil.
sizzling a lot! Sorry hard to see!
Yummy, little crispy bits…now you know it’s time to add the onions and garlic.
Keep cooking until the onions are soft. Then add in the rice and stir to coat all of the grains.
Add the wine, make sure it is room temperature, and stir until the rice absorbs the liquid.
Now heat up your stock, or mix together your stock like I do. I use the Better than Bullion brand, it’s like a wet bullion cube. It’s super flavorful and you just add a couple of scoops to a big pot of water. Again, I don’t really like measuring.
Now start ladlin that stock into the rice, and stir, and stir, and scoop and stir. You want to incorporate as much air as you can into the risotto. This gets it creamy and gives the sauce (can’t even call it sauce, but don’t know what to call it) that certain texture that is like nothing else.
You’ll need to stir vigorously at times. My arm usually gets pretty tired. It takes about twenty minutes total.
When the rice is just al dente, turn off the heat, stir in a ladle full of stock, add a large pat of butter and the cheese, and cover it for like 2 minutes. Then it’s done.
It’s really steaming in this pic. Now scoop it into a big pasta bowl. Make a well in the middle and plop an egg yolk in the center. Ours are from our chickens and since they are wild their yolks are super orange. I’m used to it now, but it shocks some.
Mix it all together, so that the heat from the risotto cooks the yolk…so creamy
Finito, so good.
Top with more parm chee of course. That stuff is good.
- arborio rice
- chicken stock
- 1/2 stick butter
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil.
- 6 large garlic cloves
- 1 small onion
- 2 strips of uncured bacon or pancetta
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 4 egg yolks
- parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper
- Dice the onion, garlic, and bacon.
- Saute bacon with 1/4 stick butter and olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan.
- Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft.
- Add rice and stir until all the grains are coated.
- Stir in room temperature wine until it is absorbed.
- Stir in a ladle full of stock. Keep stirring and adding stock, never letting it fully absorb all of the moisture. Incorporate a lot of air as you are stirring to create the creamy texture.
- Stop when the grains are al dente. Remove from heat, stir in one more ladle of stock, the rest of the butter, and some parmesan cheese. Cover and let sit for 2 minutes.
- Ladle into large pasta bowls, make a well in the center of each and drop one yolk into each center. Stir the yolk into the rice, so the rice cooks the yolk. Top with more parmesan cheese and dig in.
I'm a country girl at heart. I tried living in the city and it just didn't work. Welcome to my ramblings as a teacher and wife. 
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