Pasta Amatriciana

time 30
🍽
serves 2
🏅
difficulty Easy

A traditional and super simple Italian pasta dish. I don't think I'll ever pronounce the name properly, it kind of gets away from me mid-way through, but its a delicious meal + a good way to use guanciale if you bought it for carbonara

🛒Ingredients

  • 75grams of Guanciale
  • 125grams of dried pasta
  • 1 tin of whole tomatoes
  • 30grams of Pecorino
  • Black pepper
  • 📖Method

  • Dice your Guanciale into small cubes and set aside.
  • Fill a large pan with salted water and begin to heat.
  • Whilst that's heating up, add your Guanciale to a cold pan, turn to medium heat and allow the pan to come to temperature, with the guanciale in it.
  • Once the Guanciale starts to brown a little, turn it onto a lower heat and continue cooking for a couple of minutes.
  • Once it's looking nice and brown, add in your tinned tomatoes. Either whiz these up before in a blender or mouli or use a masher once they're in the pan, you want them nice and smooth.
  • Give it a good stir, you want to make sure you're mixing in all the fat and tomatoes.
  • Add a good amount of black pepper and allow to reduce for around 20 minutes. You're looking for a consistency that should coat the back of a wooden spoon.
  • Around nows a good time to add your pasta to what should be, boiling water.
  • Once your sauce has reduced, and your pasta is cooked, transfer the pasta directly to the sauce, try and avoid draining it, use a slotted spoon or tongs for spaghetti.
  • If your sauce is looking a little thick or over-reduced, add a couple splashes of the pasta water to loosen.
  • Mix pasta through the sauce thoroughly.
  • Once your pasta's coated, chuck in almost all your cheese and mix it through again.
  • And you're done! Serve with the remainder of the cheese on top and a liberal helping of black pepper.