Pasta Alla Amatriciana Recipes

Steps:

• Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti in the boiling water, stirring occasionally, until tender yet firm to the bite, about 12 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook onion until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Pour in passata, water, and sugar; cook until sauce has thickened, 10 to 15 minutes
• Drain spaghetti and toss with sauce, remaining olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and red pepper flakes. Season with salt and pepper.

Steps:

• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.
• Meanwhile, unroll the pancetta. Cut it into 1-inch long chunks, and then slice each chunk thinly across the grain.
• Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over moderately low heat. Add the pancetta and cook until it renders some of its fat, about 5 minutes. Do not allow it to crisp. Add the onion and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. While the onion is cooking, add the pasta to the boiling water.
• Add the red pepper flakes and parsley to the onion mixture and cook briefly to release their fragrance. Add the vinegar and simmer briefly until it evaporates, then add the tomato puree and 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Simmer briefly to blend.
• When the pasta is just shy of al dente, drain it and return it to the warm pot over moderate heat. Add the sauce and cook briefly so the pasta absorbs some of the sauce, then transfer the pasta to a warmed serving bowl and shower with the pecorino. Serve immediately.

Steps:

• Make sure to have a pot of boiling salted water for pasta going before starting this dish. You will not cook the pasta all the way as you will finish it in the pan with the sauce.
• Drop the pasta into the boiling water to start the cooking process.
• Meanwhile, in a saute pan heat some oil over high heat and add the pancetta. Saute until the pancetta is rendered (most of the fat melts away), and then turn the heat down to medium. Pancetta should look like crispy bacon. Add the onions and stir constantly making sure the onions do not burn. Once the onions are soft and cooked through, add the red sauce. Cook for 1 minute, and then add the cheese and pepper flakes, stirring to incorporate.
• Turn off the heat on the sauce and add the cooked pasta to the pan with the sauce. Turn the heat back on to low and toss the pasta constantly so that the sauce will stick to the pasta (the sauce should be thick and shouldn't create a pool on the plate). Transfer the pasta and sauce to a bowl and sprinkle more cheese on top to serve.

Steps:

• Cut guanciale into 1-inch by 1/8-inch strips.
• Heat olive oil over medium heat in a saucepan. Add guanciale and cook until well browned and fully rendered, 5 to 7 minutes. Turn off the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer it to a bowl. Leave all fat in the pan.
• Start pasta: Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Cook rigatoni in the boiling water, stirring occasionally, until not quite done, about 10 minutes. You want it undercooked by at least 1 to 1 1/2 minutes.
• At the same time, add wine to the guanciale fat in the saucepan. Place over medium-high heat and cook for about 1 minute. Stir in tomato sauce and pepper; bring to a simmer.
• Transfer the almost fully-cooked pasta into the sauce using a slotted spoon; it's okay if some water gets in the sauce. Add guanciale and stir to combine. Season with salt. Cook and stir until pasta absorbs the sauce and finishes cooking, and the sauce thickens up, about 3 minutes. If the sauce gets too thick, add a splash of the pasta water.
• Turn off the heat and add some of the Pecorino cheese. Stir until melted, then repeat until all cheese has been added.
• Ladle into 2 bowls and serve.

Steps:

• In a large (12-inch) skillet, heat olive oil over medium. Add guanciale and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 5 minutes. To the skillet, add tomatoes, black pepper and red-pepper flakes, and season with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally and smashing tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon, until tomatoes have broken down and sauce is thickened, about 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a large pot of salted water, cook pasta according to package directions until just shy of al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta cooking water and drain.
• Add pasta, tomato sauce and ½ cup of pasta cooking water back to the large pasta pot and stir vigorously over medium-high heat until pasta is evenly coated in the sauce, about 1 minute. (Add more pasta water if sauce is dry.) Remove from heat, stir in the cheese and season to taste with salt.
• Divide pasta among bowls and garnish with more cheese and black pepper.

Steps:

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Combine the olive oil and meat in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat is nicely browned, about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat.
• Cook the pasta until it is tender but not mushy. Before draining the pasta, remove about a cup of the cooking water and reserve it.
• Toss the drained pasta with the meat and its juices; stir in the cheese. If the mixture is dry, add a little of the pasta-cooking water (or a little olive oil). Toss in lots of black pepper and serve.
• Spaghetti Carbonara: While the pasta is cooking, warm a large bowl and beat 3 eggs in it. Stir in about 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and the pancetta and its juices. When the pasta is done, drain it and toss with the egg mixture. If the mixture is dry (unlikely), add a little reserved cooking water. Add plenty of black pepper and some more Parmigiano-Reggiano to taste and serve.
• Pasta all'Amatriciana: In step 1, remove the pancetta with a slotted spoon and, in the juices left behind, sauté a medium onion, sliced, over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until well softened, about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool a bit. Stir in 2 cups chopped tomato (canned is fine; drain it first) and turn the heat back to medium. Cook the sauce, stirring occasionally, while you cook the pasta. When the pasta is done, drain it and toss it with the tomato sauce, the reserved pancetta, and at least 1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
• The eggs will cook fully from the heat of the pasta. If this makes you at all nervous, however, do the final tossing of eggs, cheese, and pasta in the cooking pot, over the lowest heat possible.
• Cookbooks and articles about Italian cooking insist that the "genuine" meat for these recipes is pancetta-salted, cured, and rolled pork belly. Pancetta is available in almost any decent Italian deli and in many specialty stores, but for those of us who could not obtain pancetta, bacon-which is also pork belly, but cured and smoked-is an adequate substitute. (In fact, the first choice for these dishes is guanciale, salted and cured pig jowl; but that's hard to find.)
• Similarly, pecorino Romano is "essential" to pasta alla gricia, Parmigiano-Reggiano is the most commonly used cheese in carbonara, and the Amatriciana-style sauce is at home with either. But, again, you can choose whatever you like-no one is looking.