This recipe came about because I was making a giant chiffon cake, and had a ton of egg yolks leftover. While I can think of 5-6 desserts off the top of my head that use up said egg yolks, I figured, why not do something savory for a change? I’ve seen people on social media using tons of egg yolks to make a rich, golden-orange pasta dough, and thought to try that myself. Usually when it comes to pasta dough, I either lean towards a simple flour-whole egg dough or a semolina flour-water dough, so trying to substitute the egg white with more egg yolk sounded intriguing. The end result was a super tender, soft pasta dough that had an almost buttery taste to it. It was delicious, and will be a back-of-pocket recipe I’ll keep in case I find myself needing to use up a bunch of egg yolks in the future! In terms of what to pair that pasta with, I had a couple ideas, but figured if we were going to use eggs, why not use more, and go with a carbonara? Pasta carbonara, which is Italian for the “coal miner’s pasta”, consists of a creamy egg sauce, cured pork(traditionally, guanciale or cured pork cheek is used, but bacon is what we’re going with this time around for a more breakfast-y riff), and a decent helping of black pepper, hence why it looks like a coal miner came across it. I wanted to give this a more breakfast-y feel because we had just bought some black forest bacon, and that plus some everything bagel breadcrumbs can make anything into a breakfast pasta!

For this recipe, I tried to keep the carbonara portion fairly traditional, but using a few different techniques to ensure a smooth, emulsified sauce. While a carbonara sauce is creamy, that consistency is achieved by emulsifying pork fat, eggs, cheese, and pasta water. No actual cream is added(though I’ve seen some people use mascarpone, which I’m a-okay with, but I’m also not Italian, so depending on who you ask on if adding mascarpone is authentic or not, you’ll get mixed answers there). My recipe uses eggs, parm, pasta water, and bacon fat instead of guanciale fat. Normally you are supposed to gently cook the eggs in the rendered bacon fat, with the pasta water, and add the cheese. But I found that doing this causes the eggs to scramble rapidly. So I borrowed a pastry technique of tempering my eggs, first by whisking into them the cheese and fat, then some of the pasta water, then whisking them over a double boiler like a sabayon, just to get the cheese melted in, and as an extra fail-safe, I use an immersion blender to ensure everything is properly emulsified into a perfectly silky, creamy carbonara sauce! The black pepper comes into play because I toast it off in the bacon fat, prior to adding it into the egg sauce. While the double boiler-immersion blender method is FAR from what an Italian nonna will do, it gets the results that I want, and I’m not eating scrambled egg spaghetti, so that’s why I did it. The pasta itself, being made from egg yolks, does require a decent amount of kneading, just to ensure that there is gluten development since a dough being so rich in egg yolks can be very soft, and we want springy noodles. Overall, the recipe can come together, from start to finish, in 45 minutes, so it’s a relatively quick one, and is a really hearty brunch dish!

Makes 2-3 portions:
For the pasta dough:
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 egg yolks
a pinch of salt

On a cutting board, form a well with the flour, and mix into that the egg yolks and salt, stirring until a dough forms. Rest the dough for 10 minutes, then roll out to the third-thinnest setting on a pasta roller, and cut into wide noodles.

For cooking the pasta, boil for 45 minutes in heavily salted water before finishing in the sauce.

For the carbonara sauce:
4 strips black forest bacon, diced
3 whole eggs
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pasta water
2 tbsp black peppercorns, toasted and ground finely

In a pan, render out the bacon fat, reserving 2 tbsp for the crumbs, then add to that the black pepper. In a heatproof bowl, whisk together the eggs with the rest of the bacon fat, the cheese, and add into that the pasta water. Transfer the eggs to a double boiler and whisk for 1-2 minutes, just to melt down the cheese and pasteurize the eggs. Should there still be clumps, insert an immersion blender and puree until smooth. With the pan off heat, add in the egg mixture, then return to a low flame, stirring until warmed and combined. Take off heat again to prevent any scrambling, as the residual warmth from the cooked pasta will reheat it through.

For the everything bagel crumbs:
2 tbsp bacon fat
1/3 cup panko
1 tbsp everything bagel seasoning
a pinch of salt

With the reserved bacon fat, toast all of your ingredients in a pan on medium heat for 2-3 minutes.