Easy spaghetti carbonara

Traditional carbonara calls for guanciale, which is Italian cured pork cheek. It’s usually sold in one piece ready to be cut at home. You’ll find it in good delis and specialist butcher shops. Pancetta makes a good alternative and can be bought ready diced in many supermarkets. Bacon lardons are similar and more widely available. You can also chop bacon rashers into thin strips for an easy store-cupboard style supper.

Ensure your frying pan is large enough to hold the pasta once it’s cooked and don’t burn the pancetta; you want the fat to be golden and to have released lots of flavour without browning too much which could spoilt the look and taste of the sauce.

The steaming hot spaghetti will cook the carbonara sauce as you mix it together in the frying pan, so take care not to overcook it at this stage as the eggs will scramble and the texture of the sauce won't be quite as smooth. You’ll know if your sauce is overcooking if you see it becoming grainy as the eggs heat. If this happens, remove from the heat immediately and quickly add another splash of the pasta cooking liquid, or transfer to a large bowl, and continue tossing. You could also try adding a little double or single cream if you have some handy to loosen the sauce. And don’t panic, a good grating of Parmesan and a few twists of ground black pepper will help disguise most mistakes.

Some recipes call for egg yolks only, but using whole eggs makes the sauce less likely to fail. Make sure you beat them well, so the yolks and whites are well combined. It helps to use room temperature eggs, if they are fridge cold it's harder for the hot pasta to cook them through when making the sauce.

Make sure you cook the carbonara just before you serve it and don’t forget to warm your plates or bowls as it will cool quickly. It’s best made in smaller quantities to give you the best control over the ingredients – you are aiming to make a silky, smooth emulsified sauce that coats every strand of pasta.

Pecorino is a good alternative to Parmesan and is used in a classic spaghetti carbonara. Grana Padano is a more budget conscious choice.

Pick a good quality spaghetti if you can. Ideally one that’s been made using bronze dies to extrude the pasta. This gives a rougher surface to each strand which means it will hold sauce better. You can use tagliatelle or linguine instead of spaghetti if you like. And fresh pasta can be used in place of the dried if you prefer.

Don’t forget that for a carbonara, you also want to use the pasta cooking liquid to help make the sauce extra silky, so make sure to reserve it when you drain the pasta. If you do forget, use some freshly boiled water from a kettle instead.

Use kitchen tongs to toss the pasta with the sauce rather than a spoon, as it's easier to mix everything together.

Spaghetti carbonara doesn’t reheat well, but if you do have some leftover, you could warm-up on in a microwave oven on a medium setting for a couple of minutes. The texture won’t be quite the same, but it will still taste delicious.