Food & Drink, Let's cook with Nonna Rosa

Bucatini all’amatriciana | Let’s cook with Nonna Rosa

Our beloved Italy always manages to tell a piece of its history through its dishes. This time our journey takes us to Lazio, the home of pasta all’amatriciana, one of Rome’s best-loved traditional dishes. Apparently it does not have a proper official recipe, but it is certain that there are three main ingredients: pecorino cheese, guanciale bacon and tomato sauce. In November 2019, the European Commission published an application for registration in the EU Official Journal to have the recipe for Amatriciana sauce officially recognised as a traditional Italian speciality in order to guarantee it against imitations and fakes.

It serves 4:

320 gr bucatini
150 gr guanciale amatriciano bacon
500 gr spagnoletta tomatoes
90 gr pecorino romano
50 ml white wine
1 small fresh red chilli pepper
Salt to taste

Difficulty: Easy

Time: 30 minutes

Procedure:

We start by blanching the tomatoes in salted water for about 1½ minutes, peel them and mash them in a bowl with a fork or with our hands. Now remove the spiced rind from the bacon, dice it and brown it in a pan without adding anything. We remove the fat from the bacon from the pan as it melts and keep it aside. Cook the guanciale until it becomes crispy and keep it. In the same frying pan we now put the fat from the guanciale stored earlier, deglaze with white wine, add the tomato, salt and chilli pepper and leave to cook for about 25 minutes. In the meantime, boil the bucatini in plenty of salted water, drain 2 minutes before the end of cooking and pour directly into the pan with the tomato, add the guanciale and finish cooking. With the heat off, we add a little pecorino cheese. Finally we serve with more pecorino cheese and a few cubes of bacon kept aside.