Pasta Carbonara!

Our first cooking class was an exciting and memorable one! Our chef Christina is an incredible cook and owns her own restaurant in Rome. She values fresh ingredients and adds a unique flair to all of her dishes. She is truly very talented. One of the dishes that we learned how to make was the traditional Roman dish, pasta carbonara. Before our cooking session, I had never tried the dish and was a bit skeptical about raw egg being the foundation for the pasta sauce. Christina began our lesson by first teaching us about the fundamentals of cooking pasta. She told us that good quality pasta is determined by the location it is produced and the ingredients it is made of. The first thing we had to do was boil a large pot of water for our pasta. Then we had to make our carbonara sauce by combining raw eggs, parmesan cheese, and pecorino cheese together. We also had to cut up some pancetta and begin frying it in a pan with some olive oil. Christine told us that our pancetta is done when the fat of the pancetta becomes translucent and allows the meat to easily slide in the pan. We moved to the other stove and quickly added our pasta and egg sauce. Christina eased my skepticism of raw egg by explaining how the raw egg is actually cooked when the hot pasta is immediately added to the cheese sauce. Afterwards, we added the pancetta. After combining all of the components together, it was finally time to taste! It was absolutely delicious! The combination of the fresh cheese with the spicy pancetta made for a delightful treat! I will definitely be making this dish in the future!