Amatriciana

A sauce built in rendered guanciale fat, with the tomato cooked into it and pecorino stirred in off the heat.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains Pecorino Romano made with lamb rennet, pork.

Ingredients

• 150 g guanciale, in short thick batons
• 400 g tinned plum tomatoes, crushed by hand
• 1 dried chilli, crumbled
• 60 g pecorino romano, finely grated
• 400 g bucatini
• 1 tablespoon salt, for the pasta water
• black pepper

Method

1. Put the guanciale in a cold dry pan and bring it up slowly over a low heat, 8 to 10 minutes, until the fat has run and the lean part is crisp at the edges. NO OIL GOES IN THIS PAN: the rendered fat is the base of the sauce and adding oil dilutes it.
2. Lift the guanciale out with a slotted spoon and set it aside, leaving the fat behind.
3. Add the chilli to the fat for 20 seconds, then the tomatoes. Simmer 15 minutes until the sauce has darkened and no longer tastes raw.
4. Boil the bucatini in well-salted water until just short of tender, keeping a cup of the water.
5. Drain the pasta and turn it through the sauce with the guanciale and a splash of the pasta water, over a low heat, for a minute.
6. TAKE THE PAN OFF THE HEAT BEFORE THE PECORINO GOES IN. Pecorino added over a flame seizes into strings; off the heat, with a little starchy water, it melts into the sauce and thickens it.
7. Grind black pepper over and serve at once.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes