The trick is to keep the right¹ volume of noodle-water before mixing pasta and sauce in the noodle pot. The starch in the water gives the sauce the right consistence.
For carbonara the cooking pot is too hot and IMHO cooks the egg too much.
I just remove spaghetti with a “whatever the tool is called”, so that I have all the cooking water at my disposal and I can dose it with a ladle. Too much cooking water messes the carbonara really bad, since if you already mixed it with egg, you will need to dry it and the only way is really keeping it in the pan, which will also cook the egg.
Temperature is just as tricky. Let the pasta and the rest of the water cool down about a minute. Some obviously bored physicists have experimentally found the “perfect” way (egg not denaturalizing, sauce homogenous) a couple of months ago and published a paper about it. The search engine of your choice might find it.
There is also a famous Italian chemist who deal with food (recipe [IT]).
I remember that egg doesn’t need to go above 65C, but now I don’t know if this paper also addresses what the minimum should be, I will have a look!).
I usually put the bowl with the egg briefly on top of the boiling water, just to warm it up a little bit.
The trick is to keep the right¹ volume of noodle-water before mixing pasta and sauce in the noodle pot. The starch in the water gives the sauce the right consistence.
¹tricky
For carbonara the cooking pot is too hot and IMHO cooks the egg too much. I just remove spaghetti with a “whatever the tool is called”, so that I have all the cooking water at my disposal and I can dose it with a ladle. Too much cooking water messes the carbonara really bad, since if you already mixed it with egg, you will need to dry it and the only way is really keeping it in the pan, which will also cook the egg.
Temperature is just as tricky. Let the pasta and the rest of the water cool down about a minute. Some obviously bored physicists have experimentally found the “perfect” way (egg not denaturalizing, sauce homogenous) a couple of months ago and published a paper about it. The search engine of your choice might find it.
There is also a famous Italian chemist who deal with food (recipe [IT]).
I remember that egg doesn’t need to go above 65C, but now I don’t know if this paper also addresses what the minimum should be, I will have a look!). I usually put the bowl with the egg briefly on top of the boiling water, just to warm it up a little bit.
*Tongs, spider skimmer, inverted pan
Thanks! Ironically, I searched now and the one I use is called “spaghetti ladle”.
you could get a little silicone wizard on the end and call it your spaghetti wand