50-80g of dry pasta per person. You can also use fresh pasta if you’d like;
1 whole egg (per person) + 2 egg yolks. Example: for 2 people it would be 2 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks
Pecorino cheese (you can also replace for parmigiano reggiano if you don’t find it). I don’t measure this and usually
add as much cheese as necessary for the creamy texture. Just make sure you don’t add to much otherwise you won’t have
a sauce but instead, a block of melted cheese. If you need some guidance I would say 3 tbsp of pecorino cheese per
person;
80-100g of Guanciale per person. You can find this in italian specialized grocery stores (in Vancouver it’s Bosa
Foods). If you can’t find it, you can also use pancetta or bacon;
Black pepper: as much as you like.
Directions
Put water with salt to boil and add the pasta when water is boiling
Start frying the guanciale in a frying pan. No oil is necessary as guanciale already has a lot of fat. Use medium
heat;
While guanciale is frying on the pan and pasta is cooking, prepare the sauce and don’t throw away the fat as it will
be really important for the sauce;
The sauce is basically whisking the eggs, egg yolks, pecorino cheese and black pepper all together. You don’t need to
spend too much time here, only enough for mixing everything;
Once pasta and guanciale is done (if guanciale gets ready before the pasta is cooked, set it aside until pasta is
done), add the pasta to your frying pan (it cannot be insanely hot, but hot enough to cook the eggs without making
them scrambled eggs) and right after the sauce.
Once you add the sauce, you need to start mixing everything very quickly to avoid overcooking the eggs.
Add some water from the pasta as it will help with create the desired sauce texture (be careful for not adding too
much water, probably 1-2 tbsp of water is enough). It’s important to add the water from the pasta cooking process as
it has starch and it will help with the sauce texture.
Finish the dish with more pecorino cheese and black pepper as you like.
