Pumpkin saffron carbonara.
We're going to take
these adorable little baby butternut pumpkins.
You can use any pumpkin.
You can cut up a sugar pumpkin.
You can use a big butternut and cut it into quarters.
Are pumpkin and squash the same?
This is orange squash and it is the same.
So, we're using an orange flesh squash
of any variety and it's salt, pepper and nutmeg on this
and a little spray or brush or drizzle of olive oil
and we roast them until their tender split side down
and then we're gonna put a couple of cups of the pumpkin
into our food processor
and then I'm going to take, basically we made saffron tea,
you take some saffron in bone broth
or vegetable stock and you add it to this
and I'm going to reserve a little bit of that saffron liquid
to temper the eggs.
Normally when you make carbonara,
we use just the salted starchy cooking water
from the pasta itself.
This is a very quick cooking dish actually,
speaking of that, I think I'm gonna drop the pasta now.
Whenever we cook pasta, especially dry pasta,
we really liberally salt the water,
more than you think you need.
The water itself is usually the an ingredient that's used
in Italian cooking to emulsify sauce and pasta together.
Regardless, it is the only chance you get
to flavor the pasta itself, the product that you're cooking.
So, we wait until the water's rolling boil, salted.
(food processor buzzing)
So, now we just let that puree.
It smells so great because of the saffron.
I let it waft over there.
So, we've got this ready.
So, we're going to add now the equivalent of bacon for us,
you use guanciale, which is a pork cheek or pancetta
which is what we have in the pan,
a nice meaty piece of pork, finely chopped.
You can make this a vegetarian preparation.
It is delicious and that's fine.
There is egg in this though,
so you can make it just with pumpkin puree
if you wanna be sans egg.
But, my husband's favorite four letter word is pork
which is why this is his favorite dish.
I'm with John on that.
Yep, I always add an extra couple of ounces
versus what I write in the recipes for anything
that has guanciale or pancetta in it
'cause John just comes over and picks it outta the pan
with a spoon or a fork while I'm cooking.
So, I have to bump up the amounts for our house
and I'm grading in a little garlic.
The reason we wait to do this is to render,
we wanna render out the flavor from the pork
into olive oil first and then we want
that to calm down, over low heat,
you add the garlic so we don't singe the garlic.
Oh, it smells good.
And you go two turns of the pan
(audience applause)
with a little bit of wine.
Now, this would be delicious even without that,
it's just the alcohol burning off.
Another thing I did was when I roast the squash,
I reserved a little bit of it and diced it.
This is for texture when you serve.
So, we have a little bit of the squash that's diced
that we did in puree, just to mix in,
give it a little more texture, a little more,
hello, look at me.
Okay, this is exciting.
We have the starchy cooking water
that you would temper your eggs with,
that's these guys, egg yolks,
three egg yolks per pound of pasta.
That's what makes the carbonara, carbonara.
The reason we have to temper it
is so that the eggs won't scramble.
I added the hot stock with the saffron
and that's how we temper.
You slowly pour it into the egg yolks
to raise the temperature so this is now going to be saucy,
a little saucy and thicken slowly
instead of turning into scrambled eggs.
So, we add our hot but undercooked pasta
right to this beautiful hot mess that we've got going here
and then we add that delicious golden saffron sauce
and then we add the cheese.
(audience applauding)
Parmigiano and pecorino, sheep's milk and cow's milk
and then we add the pumpkin puree.
(audience applauding)
I know and then we add a little
of that diced pumpkin for our texture
and this is what we're doing now,
we're just stirring, stirring, stirring
and tossing, tossing, tossing.
It's pretty.
It's just so pretty.
So, a little bit of parsley
and the last of our pumpkin on top.
(audience applauding)