Roast tomato, garlic and chorizo carbonara

Trigger warning! Non-traditional carbonara ahead! Proceed with caution if you’re a purist and/or Italian.

This really is not a carbonara, but it does have the eggy cheesy goodness of the Roman dish we all hold so dearly. The original was by no means in need of adjustments, but I really had a craving for roast tomato, as well as carbonara so I took a gamble and Hey! It works! Coming out of the coldest month in April we’ve seen in the Netherlands in many years I think we can all use some delicious comfort food while we pray, beg and sing to the weather gods if they can PA-LEASE get their shit together for May.

Ingredients #

Ingredients for 2:

• 200gr Rigatoni Napolitani
• 1 head of garlic (yes a whole head, stop whining)
• 250gr cherry tomatoes
• 100gr dried chorizo
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk
• 80gr Parmigiano Reggiano
• Black pepper
• Salt

Method #

1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Cut the top of the head of garlic so the cloves are exposed and wrap it in tin foil. Place it in a baking tray together with the tomatoes and roast in the oven until the tomatoes are blistered, about 30-40 minutes.

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook your pasta according to the instructions on the package, leaving it one minute short of al dente as we’ll finish cooking it in the sauce.

3. Cut the chorizo in half lengthwise and slice it in half moons. If you feel really passionate about the chorizo being a different shape that’s fine, you do you. Starting in a cold skillet or your favorite pasta sauce making pan, add the chorizo and bring the heat up to medium to slowly render out the fat and crisp it up.

4. Finely chop the rosemary needles and add them to the chorizo once it looks nice and crispy. Also add a tablespoon of tomato puree and fry everything together for a few minutes.

5. Once the tomatoes are blistered beautifully take them and the garlic out of the oven. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their papery bulb, chop them up finely and add them and the tomatoes into the chorizo mixture. Give everything a few minutes to fry together.

6. In the meantime crack an egg + one egg yolk into a small bowl and grate a piece of about 80gr of parmesan into the bowl. Grind some black pepper in it and mix it well.

7. When the pasta is done cooking add it to the chorizo tomato mix with a few splashes of pasta water. Now we’re going to add the egg mixture to the pasta and we do not, I repeat do NOT, want to end up with scrambled eggs. Personally I find the easiest way to turn off the stove, stir the pasta around to release some of the heat, say for 30 seconds. Then add the eggs in while stirring constantly. Alternatively you could stir a little bit of pasta cooking water to the bowl with the egg mixture, to temper the eggs and then stir it through the pasta afterwards. This probably works very well too, I’ve just never had a problem with method A, so why change a winning team u know.

8. Stir everything together to make a nice glossy sauce, if you feel like it’s not glossy enough you can add a little bit of pasta water to help you out. Plate that bad boi up with some extra olive oil, because always, and enjoy!

So delicious, soooo easy. To anyone who's ever attempted a carbonara and ended up with scrambled eggs: I see you, but with a little patience I promise you it's not going to be a problem. To anyone who's ever attempted a carbonara with cream: I guess I have absolutely zero grounds left on which to condemn you after this violently non-traditional version, but just stop it already with the cream and give the tomato version a try.