Must include assortment of meaty mushrooms cooked in BUTTER and some garlicy spring greens — ramps, leeks, wild garlic, broccolini, etc. Mix with pasta, pasta water, egg, egg yolk, parm and you won’t even miss the pancetta (pigs are really smart 🥹).
This is different from that one that you can get at chain restaurants where it’s just chicken Alfredo with peas and carrots.
The “real” thing is just the best dish. it’s cheap, comforting, simple (the technique is like riding a bike. Once you know how to do it you can always do it), and it’s a fantastic dish to serve guests. It’s so good they’ll want more but even one box of pasta will feed a ton of people cause it’s kinda heavy. Just serve with like an lemon arugula salad, some bread, and wine.
I attached the recipe that helped me mail the technique cause people have all sorts of ways they get the sauce to cook correctly.
I like it best with rigatoni but any kinda thick pasta that sauce clings to will work.
You gotta use wedge Parmesan, not the pre grated stuff.
I also gotta say that guanciale can be hard to find and/or expensive but pancetta works great and honestly (don’t kill me Italians) just regular bacon works really well too.
