Bucatini all’Amatriciana {recipe}

I did not grow up eating this dish but later, as I traveled, I learned about it and fell in love. Really, it’s a variation of the original tomato recipe I shared. This time there’s the addition of bacon (who doesn’t love bacon?) and a little white wine. Bucatini all’Amatriciana is one of Rome’s signature dishes even if it originated from the town of Amatrice. (It’s also in in the region of Lazio – same as Rome.)

A little geography lesson for you. Regions in Italy are sort of like states in the US. There are twenty regions in Italy. Each region has a caporegione (“region head” or capital) and several other larger cities all of which form a province. There are 110 provinces which act as an umbrella under which each other little town  or comune is a province of. Amatricie is a comune in the Province of Rieti.

My parents live near Camporotondo Etneo but their house is actually in the Comune di Belpasso which is in the region of Catania. Would you like to see where my parents live in the summer? With the magic of Google Maps, I can give you a virtual tour, here.

They had planned to run their home as a B&B so I created a website for them. You can see more pictures here. I am planning a tour in 2017 if you are interested! It will be quite small and very intimate. PM me if you are interested!

ANYWAYS… back to the recipe.

Bucatini  all’Amatriciana

Ingredients

4 scant tbsp extra virgin olive oil

4 slices lean salt pork, chopped (I just use bacon since it’s easier to find)

½ onion, chopped

1 fresh red pepper pod, (or you can sub crushed red pepper, about 1/4 tsp)

½ cup white wine

1 large can petite diced tomatoes

1 box bucatini, cooked al dente (hard to find bucatini so sub with any other long pasta)

Grated Pecorino Romano

Procedure

Heat olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Add pork/bacon, onion and red pepper and cook until the onion is translucent and the bacon renders its fat. Then add white wine to the pan, allowing the alcohol to evaporate, cooking for an additional 2 minutes. Add tomatoes to the pan and cook for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, cook the pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. (Learn to tell if the pasta is almost done by looking at the color of the pasta, and taste for doneness.) Sprinkle the chopped parsley on the sauce. When the pasta is done cooking, drain in a colander and add it to the sauce. Stir, coating the pasta with the sauce. Plate and serve with Pecorino Romano.

Since I’m preparing for the arrival of a hurricane, I was busy getting the house in order and didn’t think I’d have time to cook. However, I ended up finishing everything and had time to make this sauce. It came out GREAT! Almost as good as the authentic Amatriciana that I ordered when we were in Rome in 2014. Notice that they used rigatoni (a short pasta) not bucatini. I wonder if they made it like that for the tourists who don’t know any better. Or maybe they ran out of long pasta. Anyways, you can see the salt pork in the sauce and the pecorino cheese on top. I remember it being very good. We sat outside al fresco in a piazza after walking around the neighborhood known as Trastevere. I ended up making short pasta too, penne, because I like penne but I didn’t have any pecorino so I went cheeseless.