The Korean-Italian mashup you’ll set on repeat: Kimchi Carbonara Linguine

Pasta carbonara, a bacon-rich Italian favorite, gets a cross-cultural makeover with kimchi, Korea’s national dish. Recipe below.

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]C[/su_dropcap]arbonara is one of nature’s perfect foods. Whatever recipe you follow, it involves bacon (or some sort of fatty pork), vegetables and aromatics cooked in bacon fat, pasta, cheese and eggs. Sometimes cream, sometimes not. Like I said, perfect. And now we’ve discovered something that makes it more perfect.

Kimchi. Like bacon, it is delicious just about any way you use it. We are all about borrowing and mixing ingredients from various cuisines and cultures. So when I saw the magic words kimchi carbonara in a recent email subject line, I was totally there.

Unlike many traditional Italian dishes, pasta carbonara is mostly thought to be a dish that appeared after World War II, when dried pasta became a staple in Italian kitchens and American troops were supplying bacon and eggs to families after the liberation. It became immediately popular, both across Italy and in the US, as returning soldiers brought a taste for it home. According to food and wine historian Jeremy Parzen, “Carbonara is a dish that emerged as an early icon of the new post-war Italian cooking.”

By contrast, kimchi—Korea’s national dish—has been around more than two thousand years by most accounts, although it has evolved greatly over time. In its broadest description, kimchi is vegetables fermented in various spices for months. Some feature cucumbers, scallions or radishes as the main ingredient, but the one most familiar in the United States—and the one we most often reach for—is made with Napa cabbage.

If you do an online search for kimchi carbonara, you’ll find a range of recipes—much as you do for traditional pasta carbonara. Some lean more heavily in an Asian direction, using gochujang (Korean chili paste) and udon or ramen noodles. Others lean more traditionally Italian. And that’s what we did, using linguine and Parmesan, along with bacon, eggs and shallots. Kimchi and a garnish of raw scallions deliver the Asian flavors.

The resulting dish was more subtle than you might expect—the kimchi isn’t as pronounced as it is in Marion’s kimchi pancakes with chicken or my kimchi potato salad. Instead, it adds a delicious ensemble note in this cross-cultural dish, with just a light spiciness, depending on your kimchi.

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Kimchi Carbonara Linguine

Pasta carbonara, a bacon-rich Italian favorite, gets a cross-cultural makeover with kimchi, Korea's national dish.

Course Main Course, Pasta

Ingredients

• 4 strips bacon
• olive oil, if needed
• 1 generous cup kimchi, finely chopped, plus 2 tablespoons juice from the kimchi jar
• 2 medium shallots, or 1 medium yellow onion chopped
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• freshly ground black pepper and salt, as needed
• 2 thinly sliced scallions for garnish
• 8 ounces dried linguine, or other pasta, as desired

Instructions

• Start a large pot of water for cooking the pasta. Salt it with a light hand—the bacon, kimchi and Parmesan will bring plenty of salt to the dish. Cook the bacon, starting it in a cold, dry sauté pan, over medium flame. Cook until it is on the crisp side, then drain it on a paper towel-lined plate.
• Cook the pasta according to package directions, to al dente. While pasta is cooking, sauté kimchi and shallots in the bacon fat, adding olive oil as needed (my bacon wasn't very fatty, so I added a tablespoon of oil). Stirring occasionally, cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Crumble the bacon and return it to the pan.
• Whisk grated Parmesan and a generous grind of black pepper into the beaten eggs and set aside.
• Drain pasta, reserving 1 cup of pasta water. Add pasta to pan with kimchi mixture, along with the kimchi juice, and remove from heat. Toss to coat pasta completely with the oil/bacon fat in the pan. If it looks dry, add a little pasta water and toss to coat.
• Working carefully, stir in the egg mixture, tossing to coat the pasta and kimchi mixture. The goal is not to have the egg cook up like a scramble, but to just coat the pasta and create a velvety sauce that brings everything together.
• Plate pasta, making sure each plate gets plenty of the kimchi mixture. Sprinkle with sliced scallions and serve immediately.