I thought carbonara was pretty standard fare and so wasn't expecting to feature this routinely-named "Carbonara Udon" dish from Udon Shin on my blog, but I was so intrigued by one aspect of it that I felt it worth featuring. Specifically, it was the bacon tempura that came with the dish, and was completely not what I was expecting.
Normally, when you order carbonara noodles, you expect either authentic guanciale (Roman cured pork cheek) or bacon as a replacement, fried until it is slightly brown and crispy, then combined with the carbonara sauce to add to the overall medley of flavours.
But this piece of bacon was totally different, and in a good and unique way.
Instead of being crispy, it was very juicy and tender on the inside. You can see from the image that it is completely pink with no brown parts despite being the normal thinness. Due to the tempura preparation, the batter tends to protect the juices of whatever is inside, and the juices from this piece of bacon were accordingly preserved. The picture might not be that clear, but in the original, I could actually see the juice gleaming off the bacon, and its fatty strips had a somewhat jelly-like translucence to them.
Furthermore, although this particular picture had a bit more fats, the other parts of the bacon actually didn't really have much fats and was mostly pink meat, yet it retained its plump juicyness throughout.
The other interesting thing was that despite it being juicy, the tempura batter provided the airy, delicate and crisp crunch, which as you would know, is a lot more delicate and multi-layered than the coarse and slightly hard crunch of a browned bacon bit.
Instead of the burnt caramel notes in browned bacon, the tempura batter added a crisp, clean and slightly nutty and malty finish to the bacon, which I felt complemented the bacon's heaviness and umami.
The only part that I felt was a downside was that I couldn't blend the bacon taste with the carbonara sauce because otherwise the batter would get soggy. And eating the noodles on its own made it feel a little bit closer to a cacio e pepe taste albeit with egg.
Nonetheless, alternating mouthfuls between the bacon tempura and the carbonara udon did make for a more stimulating experience, with alternating pops of bacon heartiness and eggy-cheesy creaminess. So it was definitely a very unique experience that was overall very positive.
Finally, just few things to note about this dish overall. The first was that I chose sous vide egg instead of the recommended raw egg, so the consistency of my dish might have been different from their recommended version.
Second, although they did not use cream, as in authentic carbonara, they did add a chunk of butter (which you can see sitting just below the ladle) and also green onions. The cheese was also very prominent because they used a heap of it, as you can see in the image, even though it wasn't melted in like the normal Italian carbonara pasta. The overall flavour tasted not that different from a good Italian carbonara, except that the pork is separate and the green onion added a flavour not unlike the green onion in sour cream sauces. This was also an interesting twist, just not as significant as the bacon tempura.
Discover other savoury treats with a twist
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