Watch ‘Top Chef’ Fan Favorite Joe Sasto Make Classic Carbonara

One look at Joe Sasto’s Instagram feed and you can see he has a serious handmade pasta obsession. The Los Angeles-based chef and former Top Chef finalist first found his passion for pasta working for renowned chef Michael Tusk at Quince in San Francisco, which now claims three Michelin stars. He’s constantly exploring shapes, flavor combinations, colors and even infusing the noodles themselves with cannabis.

In this episode of Robb Report Culinary School, Sasto joins culinary editor Jeremy Repanich to discuss his favorite way to make a classic carbonara. Of course, he begins with guanciale, eggs from the farmers market, fresh pasta he makes himself, Pecorino, Parmesan and black pepper, but what’s most important is the technique he unpacks in this video to get the perfect consistency every time. As he prepares the dish, Sasto also explains how he’s surviving the plague, creating online cooking courses and dreaming of taking the trip he had to cancel right when Covid-19 hit.

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Odds and Ends and Additional Links

• Sasto is currently offering live online cooking classes through ChefsFeed. His next lesson on Sunday will show how to make semolina flatbreads. If you can’t join live, you can still purchase the class and watch the saved video later.

• To cut his strands of pasta, Sasto used an old tool called a chitarra.

• If you’re using a dried pasta for your recipe, Sasto says that its best to buy one imported from Italy and is made with a bronze or brass die. That’s important because it gives the pasta texture to help your sauce emulsify and adhere to the noodles. One of our favorite dried pastas is from Afeltra.

• Head to Robb Report’s Instagram page to check out more episodes of Culinary School, including Top Chef winner Mei Lin’s congee and James Beard Award-winner Chris Shepherd’s recipe for bacon chile jam.

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