Pasta Carbonara with Andrew Cotto

My friend & author, Andrew Cotto is BACK in the Cucina with another delicious meal AND Italian adventure! His latest novel, “Cucina Romana” is out NOW (link below!) and of course, we had to make the classic Roman dish, pasta carbonara! Fatty guanciale, mixed with eggs and cheese (yes Jersey peeps, it’s a bacon, egg & cheese as a pasta course!). Fresh cracked black pepper represents the “carbon” for carbonara…coal miners.

The dish has a legend around it that it developed in Rome after WWII when Italian chefs snagged the bacon and eggs from American G.I.’s rations – and of course, turned it into pasta and improved it tremendously! Whether you subscribe to this theory or not is up to you – but it makes a great story! Much like Andrew’s latest novel!