We’re back in Rome again, the eternal city … of savoury flavours and taste. Pork cheek lard dominates the local cuisine, and carbonara is the queen of the table. But if there’s only one queen, princesses abound and each one of them aspires to become queen.

This time we modify the standard carbonara version and use another typical Roman product, broad beans, for a fresh, summerly and savoury recipe that’s ideal for our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE. There are a few important steps to follow in treating the broad beans, and two different ways of accompanying them with the spaghetti.

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INGREDIENTS
Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE – 90 g
Fresh broad beans – 500 g
Pork cheek lard – 50 g
Pecorino romano (DOP) sheep’s milk cheese – 100 g
Salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce and EVO oil, as required

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Remove the skin of the broad beans (1) and immerse them for 20 seconds in the salted boiling water which will be used for cooking the Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE. Remove the beans from the boiling water and cool them in water with ice; this operation has two essential purposes: it prevents the broad beans from getting cooked, which would soften them too much, and fixes their bright green colour thanks to the thermal shock caused by the ice.  Take half of the broad beans and peel them; they will be added raw to garnish the dish. Blend the other half with oil (2), salt, pepper, pecorino cheese, a few drops of Tabasco sauce and a ladle spoonful of the spaghetti cooking water (3). At this point, filter the broad bean cream through a fine colander to eliminate any impurities and excess skins, then reduce the cream over a very low flame. Add salt and pepper if necessary.

In another pan sweat the pork cheek lard cut into thin strips until it becomes crusty (4). Recover a spoon of its fat and add it to the broad bean cream reduced over the flame (5).
Once the spaghetti are cooked, after 10 minutes, pan-fry them with the pork cheek lard so that they absorb the fat and flavour (6).
Arrange the board bean cream on the plate as a base for the spaghetti placed in a horizontal nest (7). Garnish with the crusty strips of pork cheek lard and raw broad beans then sprinkle with pecorino cheese (8).

Today we’ll learn how to prepare one of the most traditional dishes of Italian cuisine, namely spaghetti alla carbonara. According to one version of the story, the recipe originated towards the end of World War II, when the only products available on the black market were pork cheek lard, eggs and sheep’s milk cheese (pecorino); the housewives of the time applied their imagination to create a recipe interpreted in many different variants. Whenever you walk into a Roman trattoria or enter the home of a Roman grandmother, you’ll be treated to the ‘local’ version of carbonara; famous chefs of various backgrounds have modified this recipe to adapt it to their territory.

It is commonly heard that the dressing attracts the pasta, in the sense that each dressing must go with a specific type of pasta. We’ll go the other way around, that is, starting from the pasta and adapting the dressing accordingly, to create a carbonara tailored to our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE.

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INGREDIENTS
Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE – 90 g
Two fresh egg yolks
Pork cheek lard – 30 g
Pecorino romano (DOP) sheep’s milk cheese – 100 g
Black peppercorns

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This is a very quick recipe that takes 10 minutes to prepare, while the spaghetti cook in abundant salted water. Prepare two separate bowls; grate the pecorino cheese in one bowl and add the ground black pepper then beat the two egg yolks in the other bowl (1,2). Gradually add small ladle spoonfuls of cooking water together with the pecorino cheese and continue stirring until obtaining a velvety cream with the lumps still visible (3).

Meanwhile, cut the pork cheek lard into thin strips (4) and let it ‘sweat’ in a non-stick pan – in other words, cook it over a low flame without oil so that it slowly loses its fat and becomes crusty. Recover some of the fat and mix it with the egg yolks. Beat vigorously with the beater to create a cream that is not too thick.

At this point, drain the spaghetti directly in the bowl with the egg yolks. Briefly whisk to flavour the spaghetti (5) then serve them over a bed of pecorino and pepper cream (6), before topping with the strips of pork cheek lard and sprinkling some pecorino and ground pepper (7, 8).

From the very first forkful you’ll feel the crusty and salty cheek lard, immediately followed by the sweet flavour of spaghetti with egg, which clean the palate and prepare it for the final leg of the flavour journey: the pecorino cream.

Recipe by Luca Robledo

Today we’ll pretend to be pure Italians, with a recipe originating from the proverbial ability of Italians to find a way out of any situation using their cunning.

We’ve combined this quintessential Italian skill with another typical Italian art: the ability to produce savoury, wholesome and natural food such as Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE. However, we’ve modified the recipe to create a gourmet version that retains its simplicity.

The puttanesca recipe dates from the days when brothels were still legal. Common ingredients found in every Italian home – especially in Southern Italy – such as tomatoes, olives and capers, were always on hand before or after the ‘performance’; using these simple ingredients, brothel managers – or often the ladies themselves – used to prepare a plate of pasta for clients behind payment of a small extra charge.

But since we use a noble pasta like Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE, we’ve invented the gourmet version of this dish by adapting the recipe to our type of pasta, as usual.

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INGREDIENTS
Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE – 90 g
Pitted black olives – 30 g
Pachino (cherry) tomatoes – 30 g
Desalted capers – 30 g
Anchovies in salt – 30 g
EVO oil, salt, pepper, chilli pepper and garlic, as required

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Cook the Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE in unsalted and boiling water and prepare the sauce, while they cook for 10 minutes, as follows: leave aside a few olives (1), capers and a couple of tomatoes for garnishing the dish (2), and put all the other ingredients in the blender glass together with oil and fresh chilli peppers without the seeds.

Thoroughly blend all the ingredients raw to emulsify the oil with the rest of the ingredients and to ensure that the mixture turns to dark orange; filter the sauce obtained through a fine mesh colander to eliminate any impurities (3), such as the tomato skins or anchovy bones, then heat in a pan (4) together with a ladle spoonful of cooking water two minutes before draining the pasta. Pan-fry the drained Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE for roughly one minute (5) so that they absorb the flavour extracted from all the ingredients.

Arrange (6) the Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE in the plate in a horizontal nest (7) and garnish with the ingredients set aside. Add a bit of fresh oil and, if you like, a leaf of fresh parsley (8).

Recipe by Luca Robledo