Italian food has always been what I like the best. I like it so much that I even cook it every once in a while. I might like Italian food more than Japanese food. I probably do mind eating Japanese food every day. It’ll be kind of dull even though Japanese food is healthy and everything. I definitely wouldn’t mind eating Italian food every single day. As a matter of fact I did this Italian food challenge last year for a month. It was basically like an eat-healthy type of program and I cooked and ate Italian food for a month. If you know me, you would not be surprised if I start saying “I’m gonna take a cooking class!” all the sudden.
A cooking class of Carbonara taught by Daniele
Daniele and I first met at a share house Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. Last time I met him, he stayed at the house for 3 months and he was working remotely for the company based in Italy. If you think about the time difference between Europe and Tokyo, it was probably really something hard to do. He did it anyway and it was quite something.
Anyway, he loves eating and cooking and I must say he has such high standard for food. When he contacted me, he told me about his cooking class that he is hosting in Tokyo. I thought I want to go no matter what.
I probably should have asked how to cook all kinds of Italian food when he was staying in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. Now here he is in Tokyo. I thought I should not miss this chance.
Two different Carbonara in two different countries
First of all, many people cook Carbonara in Japan as well and many Italian restaurants in Japan have it as their standard menu but I must say it tastes very different from the authentic Italian Carbonara. The difference is simple though. Japanese Carbonara is mixed with milk. Italian carbonara is only with eggs. No milk is used in the process.
I guess they are both good but I always liked the Italian recipe because milk is not something I really like if it’s used for cooking.
Photo by Shohei Yoshida.
Daniele is not just good at Italian cooking. He is also a bread baker. So we started cooking carbonara and baking bread at the same time. With his clear instructions, it was not confusing at all.
Man of many talents
Daniele is definitely the guy who have many talents. He is a computer engineer working in a startup in Milano. He takes professional quality photos for fun. He loves photography so much that he even got a drone to take some arial shots while he travels. He told me about his trip to Iceland and showed me his photos. They were breathtaking. Cooking and eating good food is something he does too. He has such high standard too. He is like the kind of people who seek for the best quality for everything in life.
Photo by Shohei Yoshida
This is Daniele.
I love eating good food and cooking as well but it would probably take decades to catch up with him.
I remember there was one day, I believe it was Christmas time, there was a big party going on at the share house and he cooked a carbonara for everyone who was there at the party. It was the best carbonara I ever had in my life. I guess no one expected something so good to eat at a random Christmas party in a share house. It was such a memorable day.
So I knew how his carbonara tastes like. I did not see any reason not to go for this class.
Before this cooking class, I had never cooked any carbonara before even though I regularly cook so many other pasta sauce. I guess it’s because I thought carbonara is complicated or some thing hard to cook. This changed completely after the class.
Carbonara cooking started with frying bacon in a pan. Then mix with the stirred egg with grated cheese (parmigiano reggiano). The recipe looks as simple as this but it does not mean it’s easy. The point seems to be the heat control. If there’s too much heat left on a pan, you end up over cooking the egg and the texture would be too dry. The point is to make the whole sauce kind of slimy. According to maestro, here are the two points to keep in mind.
1) let the spaghetti cool down a little bit before pouring the eggs, or use a cold bowl (it should not cook and become like a omelette)
2) if you have some, put a little bit of white wine at the end of cooking the bacon. It’ll taste even better
Balancing the heat and the right creaminess of the eggs is the key.
This is the finished Carbonara. It was really good with just the right amount of saltiness. We did not add any salt to the sauce. Saltiness only comes from the bacon and pasta (when it was cooked in the boiling water).
Baking bread
My initial goal is to steal his carbonara recipe but bread baking was also fun and it came out looking so good.
Photo by Shohei Yoshida
Cooking the same Carbonara at home
I cooked Carbonara at home on my own just a few days after the class. It turned out great but the heat control is something I still need to work on. You can see the egg is completely cooked and became like a tiny omelete.
It still tasted great though! I guess I can make something even better next time. Let me know if you know any other tips!
は深い愛とともに末永く使わせていただきます!! でもこれは……
