Amatriciana

By Janet-2

The original recipe from the town of Amatrice, which claims to have invented it, has an even simpler version than this one, without any wine or onions, which are often used in the Roman versions. But this is the take that I prefer. Aside from the guanciale, the new ingredient you have to track down here is the tomato. The tomatoes don’t need to be fresh, and if it’s not tomato season, it’s actually better if they aren’t. But they do need to be, if at all possible, San Marzano. San Marzano have a strong, sweet taste and aren’t nearly as acidic as most homegrown varieties. (That’s why you’ll often hear that you need to put a pinch of sugar in when making sauce with American tomatoes, but why Italians don’t do the same with their tomatoes in Italy).

The difficulty is that most of the canned tomatoes sold as San Marzano in the U.S. aren’t San Marzano at all. Instead, they’re grown in the U.S. — often not even from San Marzano seeds, but hybrids or Roma seeds instead. Ideally, you want to go with the real deal. Which brings us back to D.O.P.: To be sure that tomatoes are the San Marzano variety from San Marzano, the little town outside of Naples, look for the label “Pomodoro San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese Nocerino D.O.P.” It should also have a symbol for the cosorzio (consortium) of San Marzano.

Ingredients

• to spaghetti, rigatoni or — if you can find it, and really want to do it up Italian-style — bucatini (that’s a thick, long pasta with a hole running through it) (4 oz dry)
• Crushed red-chili pepper
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 or pancetta, cut into small strips (about 3 oz)
• 1/4 to wine (about 1/4 cup, or to taste)
• Pecorino Romano (optional)

Preparation

Step 1

Heat a pan over the stove, add a splash of olive oil, and put in the guanciale. Meanwhile, set a pot of water to boil.

Once the guanciale’s fat starts to turn clear, add the white wine. Let it cook for a minute; in the meantime, crush up the canned tomatoes with your hands and add them to the pan, along with the pinch of red pepper.

Let the sauce simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, tasting and adding salt as needed (as well as more white wine or red pepper, to taste). You don’t want it to be too thin — this should be a nice, thick sauce — so if you have to wait longer for more of the liquid to boil off, that’s okay.

Drain the pasta off (but don't rinse it; the starchy water is what sticks the sauce to the pasta). Swirl it with the sauce in the pan, serve with grated Pecorino Romano on top, and enjoy with a dry red, like a good Montepulciano or Sangiovese. Sunbaked terrazza and sexy Roman lover preferable, but not included.