What’s Chicken Carbonara?

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Chicken carbonara is an Italian pasta dish with chicken, bacon, cream, egg, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper. Variations include mushrooms, peppers, and roasted nuts. The dish’s origin is uncertain, but it may have been created by coal workers or during a food shortage in Rome.

Chicken carbonara is an Italian pasta dish with chicken cooked in a creamy sauce. Most recipes for the dish include bacon, cream, egg, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper. The chefs cook the chicken and bacon first, mixing the sauce separately and combining all the ingredients just before serving with the spaghetti. Variations on the traditional recipe can include mushrooms, peppers and roasted nuts. Carbonara is believed to have been first produced by the coal workers or in 1944 following the food shortage in Rome.

The dish consists of cooked chicken and bacon served in a creamy egg-based sauce and double cream. Garlic is another common ingredient in the dish, along with parmesan cheese. Most chefs serve chicken carbonara by tossing spaghetti pasta in the sauce. Parsley, basil, or a combination of the two are the most common herbs added to the dish.

Most chefs who make chicken carbonara cook the dish in much the same way. The chicken and bacon are first fried together with the garlic and then removed from the heat once cooked. Chefs mix cream, egg yolks, Parmesan, herbs and seasonings separately. The pasta is cooked in boiling water while the rest of the dish is being prepared. The sauce is poured over the chicken and bacon and the spaghetti is tossed into the mixture before serving.

Variations on the regular chicken carbonara recipe have been made by many chefs. Some chefs choose to use another type of pasta, such as penne, instead of spaghetti. Bacon slices are substituted for bacon if it is not available. Recipes sometimes include other vegetables such as mushrooms, onions and peppers in the dish. Versions of the dish can also be found that do not include egg in the sauce.

The history of chicken carbonara is not conclusively known, but many competing theories exist. The most common is that the dish was made by coal miners or that the black pepper used resembles coal flakes. This is related to the Italian phrase alla carbonara, which means “coalmen’s style.” Other theories trace the origin of the dish to World War II, when powdered eggs and bacon were given to the citizens of Rome by Allied soldiers to combat food shortages. It is also possible that the dish was originally made with penne rather than spaghetti.




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