This dish is slightly fancier than my usual weekday dish but it is good enough to have spoiled a lot of restaurant Carbonara pasta for me while being relatively fast and easy to cook. Plus, it is vegetarian!

Ingredients (for two portions):

  • 160 grams of pasta (80 grams per person, you could go up to 100 grams), I like tagliatelle but, most pasta types would be fine1
  • half of a thick zucchini2
  • some olive oil
  • some soy sauce
  • two egg yolks3
  • some milk (about the same volume as the egg yolk)
  • a lot of parmesan (at least the same volume as the egg yolk)
  • a lot of black pepper (get a pepper grinder, you will get a much-improved taste)
  • two big cloves of garlic4

Preparation:

Pasta

  • fill a pan with water and bring it to a boil
  • you can optionally add a generous amount of salt to your pasta water, the pasta will taste better but, you do not need it here
  • add the pasta when the water starts boiling and keep cooking for about 10 minutes (until your pasta is cooked)

Zucchini

  • peel your zucchini
  • cut it into thin slices long as about a third of a bacon strip
  • put in a wok with a splash of olive oil
  • add a splash of soy sauce
  • let cook until the pasta is ready

Sauce

  • put the egg yolks in a bowl
  • add the milk
  • add the parmesan
  • add black pepper (you can, optionally, also add some chili flakes here)
  • add the crushed garlic
  • mix thoroughly and set aside

Assembly

  • once the pasta is cooked, add a splash of pasta water to the wok, this will help with the sauce consistency (you can be approximate with the quantity, too little and your sauce will miss a bit of thickness, too much and you will have to reduce longer: either way the result will be fine and you can do better next time) you can do it directly from the pasta pan, no need for an intermediate container (that would give you additional opportunities to burn yourself)
  • strain the pasta and add them to the wok (it is okay if there is some pasta water left with the pasta, we have pasta water in the wok anyway)
  • set the heat to low
  • add the sauce and mix constantly (to avoid having the egg yolk curl) until you reach the desired consistency (I recommend aiming for slightly more liquid than your sweet spot, the sauce will thicken further once served)
  • serve on a plate5

Credits:

This is my take on Adam Raguseas’s carbonara pasta with zucchini. I made it fully vegetarian and tweaked a few things.

  1. Ideally you want pasta that will catch the sauce. Ridged pasta is a fine option, bronze cut pasta would be the fancy way to go. ↩︎

  2. Or a few strips of bacon if you don’t want to go vegetarian. You would cut the slices in half and cook them in their fat before adding the pasta and sauce. ↩︎

  3. You can reserve the egg whites for another recipe. ↩︎

  4. Do not forget or omit the garlic. It is a key ingredient in the final flavor. ↩︎

  5. The garlic flavor diffuses nicely with time making this a very nice dish to rewarm the next day. To do so just warm up your wok while mixing constantly (you can add a small splash of water if the sauce is too thick). ↩︎