AMATRICIANA || The Classic Roman Pasta

Amatriciana

One of the great pastas of the Roman Pasta Canon, amatriciana is a classic from Amatrice in Lazio. The key is high-quality ingredients: good pasta, guanciale, tomatoes, and Pecorino Romano. A simple dish that always manages to impress that comes together in no time!

Ingredients (4 servings)
400 g (14 oz) rigatoni or bucatini
160 g (5.6 oz) guanciale
400 g (14 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes, hand-crushed (or high-quality passata)
80 g-85g (2.8 oz) Pecorino Romano (DOP if you can get!)
½–1 tsp Calabrian chiles or red pepper flakes
Dry white wine (optional)
Salt (for pasta water)
Freshly ground black pepper

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[Music] Hi, welcome back to another video. Today we are going to be making one of the great Roman pastas, Amatricana. Amatricana comes from the town Amatrice in Latio, Italy, and it is absolutely one of my favorites, a strong contender for my favorite pasta. Let’s get into it. Walking through the ingredients, we have to use a really good high quality guanchade, which is cured pork jaw. Pecorino Romano, not Parano Reiano, Pecorino. I like to use riatoni or bukatini. We’re using riatoni. This is also a really good quality pasta. [Music] Black pepper, always freshly ground. And a high quality canned whole peeled tomato. We have carbonara, we have we have zona, we have amatricana, and we have gacio pepe. Amatricana was actually born out of greca. And it includes all of the beauty of the luscious tomatoes with the pork chow, the fat, the cheese. It makes a really beautiful dish and comes together very easily. Let’s get into it. In the United States, it can be a bit tricky to find guanchal. You can actually order it online or find a specialty market. This is very important. I have seen recipes that use bacon or peneta, which if you really can’t find guanchal, you can use, but I highly recommend getting guanchal. It is covered in a black pepper rind that you want to remove. You don’t want to cook this. So, we’re going to do that. [Music] The rind imparts a lot of flavor, but is not good to cook. [Music] So here you can see a good combination of the really fatty piece and the leaner piece. And you want a little bit of both in each. [Music] Okay, here we have three uneven cuts of wallet, but that is okay because we’re going to cut them into much smaller pieces. So you can either cut them into cubes or more long strips. I prefer the strips. [Music] If you can get both a little bit of the fatty part and the lean part in one bite, it’s perfect. [Music] Okay, all cut up. We can go ahead and put this aside while we prep the rest of the ingredients. Now we are going to hand crush our tomatoes. I’m using whole peeled tomatoes. Wookie is a great brand. One second. Oh my goodness. [Music] Take your rings off if you have any. And then just mix. I prefer to do it by hand versus a food processor just to keep the integrity of the tomatoes a bit more. And I like it to be a bit more rusty. It does not need to be completely pureed. This is also how the nonas taught me. So I like to honor tradition. That’s good. Quick wash of the hands. Okay, tomatoes are ready to go. Set those aside as well. And then I like to pre-grate the pecorino romano, but grate it yourself. Do not buy it from the store because they add stuff to it that makes it kind of get clumpy when you’re making the pasta. We don’t want that. [Music] And once you have all of these parts ready to go, the actual making of the pasta is pretty quick. I like to use a good amount of cheese. Always have a little extra if you need to top it with. Okay, I worked up a bit of a sweat. Here is the cheese ready to go. And now we can get into the cooking. Now the cooking portion. We are starting with a cold pan. Going in with the guanchal. The key is to render the fat nice low and slow. This part takes a little bit of patience, but we want to get a really nice pool of the fat without burning anything. And now we wait. So, when I was in Rome last summer, I was hanging out with a friend who is from Rome, born and raised, and actually owns a restaurant in Rome, and they made me an amatriana with red onion, which I thought was very non-traditional. I would like to know in the comments below if you like your matriana with red onion or not. For this recipe, we’re not going to use it because it’s not officially listed as part of the ingredient list, but I think I like mine with red onion. The wallet is slowly starting to release its fat. We’re not yet developing color. It’s almost getting to a translucent color before it gets brown. [Music] We’re getting there. We’re getting almost to a nice golden brown. And then we will remove. Now, with a slotted spoon, take your nice and crispy guanchal and remove. You want them to be nice and crispy, but again, not burnt. And when you take them out of the oil, they’re still getting a little bit of color. Some of the pieces with more fat need a bit more time to crisp up, but this is really the longest part of the recipe. So now we have all of this glorious fat, but it is a bit mush. So we are going to remove some of the oil. Okay, this is gold. Set aside. Use at a later date. So now we have our oil. I like a little bit of spice in my matriana. So I’m going to use some Calabrian chili pepper. You can also use just red chili pepper flakes if you’d like. [Music] Let that kind of bloom in the oil for a second. And then our tomatoes. [Music] A tiny pinch of salt. Not too much salt because the guanchal has a good amount of salt in it. [Music] Some fresh black pepper. [Music] Then we’re just going to give it a good stir and let this simmer for about 30 minutes. [Music] Our [Music] sauce has reduced quite a bit. Want to give it a taste to adjust as needed. [Music] That’s perfect. Okay. Oh, a bit spicy. Adding in our alente riadoni [Music] pasta water. Very important. [Music] We want to finish the pasta in the sauce for the last 1 to 2 minutes of cooking. We’re going to take about 3/4 of our guanchal, leaving a little bit to top at finishing. [Music] Little bit more. [Music] needs like 30 more seconds. Now we’re going to cut the heat. That was dramatic, but cut the heat. Now you’re going to go in with plenty of peorino ro. [Music] And then we’re going to give it a quick toss or mante. [Music] No, we get that. Oh, tragic. It’s still good. [Music] It’s good. It’s just hard. Now we just need to plate. [Music] have to inspect how it looks. [Music] Then we are going to top with the remaining crispy guanchal. [Music] This is my favorite part. I think it adds a lot of really delicious texture to this dish. And then we’re just going to finish with a little bit of pecorino. [Music] Maybe a little more. Now, traditionally, you do not add basil, but I think it adds a nice pop of color. Yeah, I love basil. So, omit if you don’t want it. But I have been taking care of this basil plant for months. And some of the leaves are a bit funky and some are doing really well. So, we’re going to use this. [Music] And there you have it. A delicious Roman pasta in under an hour. Let’s give it a try. Now, always get a piece of guanchal with every bite. [Music] [Music] That is very good. I just realized I forgot one small tiny thing. Fresh black pepper. Just a pinch. Okay. [Music] Okay. This is actually one of the best matrias I’ve ever made. It’s got a slight nice kick and is really good to make for impressing your friends or family. If you enjoyed this video, please like it, comment below what you would like to see next, subscribe, send it to a friend who wants to make pasta with you, and I’ll see you next time.