Dear Gordon Ramsay, we need to talk about your spaghetti. In January 2020, feeling positive again after my "is it worth it?" video, I reacted as a proud Italian to his famous pasta video and then cooked a proper carbonara.
The video that made me want to scream
The video had around 7.7 million views. It was published in 2014 and had about six thousand comments, and I'd say 90% of them were telling him off. Don't get me wrong: he's a chef and he knows how to cook. But what he does here is considered by Italians to be one of the worst things you can do to pasta. When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was a parody.
What went wrong, step by step
Salt before the water boils. That's not how we do it. We bring the water to the boil, then salt it.
Oil in the water. This is the best part. Nobody in Italy does that. If the pasta is good quality, spaghetti don't stick together. You just stir them. If they stick, the pasta is probably very low quality.
Three to four minutes of cooking. Good spaghetti take at least eight or nine minutes, not three or four.
Al dente. I disagree with how he explains it. You should take the pasta out of the water while it's still a little firm, because it finishes cooking for the last minute or two in the pan with the sauce.
Salt and oil on drained pasta. After draining, he adds salt on top and more oil. What kind of pasta is that?
My carbonara
So, as promised, I made it myself in the second half of the video and showed how I prepare spaghetti alla carbonara the Italian way. Buon appetito! And don't forget to wash the dishes afterwards.