Pasta All'amatriciana

Photo: Alejandro Duarte

Ingredients

4 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 medium Onion chopped ½" dice

1/4 pound Pancetta cut ¼" dice

1 teaspoon Crushed red pepper flakes

2 cups Basic Tomato Sauce

1 pound Penne pasta

2 tablespoons Salt

1/4 pound Freshly-grated Pecorino cheese

Preparation

Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons salt.

In a large 12- to 14-inch saute pan heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, pancetta and saute until the onion is translucent and very soft, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes and Basic Tomato Sauce and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Add the penne to the boiling water and cook according to the package directions, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the pasta in a colander over the sink.

Pour the hot pasta into the sauce pan. Return the pasta mixture to the stove and cook for about 1 minute longer, mixing thoroughly. Pour the pasta into a heated serving dish, sprinkle with lots of grated cheese and serve immediately.

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About

Actually, the most typical pasta made all'amatricana is bucatini, a kind of thick spaghetti with a hole in it ('buco' means hole in Italian), also known as perciatelli. Rigatoni are also very nice with this sauce, as are fettucine.
This dish is one of the iconic pasta of Roman cookery, although it actually originated in a small town called Amatrice (hence the name) in what is now northeastern Lazio, but was formerly part of the region called Abruzzo.
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PS: L'AMATRICIANA sauce "made in Amatrice" uses:
Guanciale, (a sort of jowl bacon); Olive oil; White vine and Tomato sauce, (added only after the arrival of the Tomato from the Americas).
It's a condiment for Spaghetti, (not bucatini); seasoned with Pecorino, (preferably local and not Romano).
Ingredients not mentioned in the original recipe: onions, garlic, carrots, hot pepper, parmigiano.
Here's a quote of the poet/writer Carlo Baccari that describes the simplicity of this recipe made by shepherds, (it's in Italian, I was unable to trace it in English): "la pecora mite e il bravo maiale, donarono insieme formaggio e guanciale." Buon Appetito!