Amatriciana, spicy tomato onion bacon sauce
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toss out simple and subtle flavors
Amatriciana has intense flavors of salty pancetta bacon, peperoncino (red cayenne pepper) and red onions brought together with tomato and lots of olive oil.
ingredients for 4
- 5-6, 1/4 inch thick slices of pancetta bacon (or normal bacon)
- 1/2 of a large red onion
- 1, 14oz can of whole or diced tomatoes
- Peperoncino or red cayenne pepper
- 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 package of spaghetti 500gr
- salt for seasoning
how to prepare, taken from the video
Start by chopping up half a red onion into thin slices and adding them to a large frying pan.
Next add in half a cup of extra virgin olive oil to the pan and let simmer on a low heat.
While that’s simmering cut up the pancetta bacon into small cube like pieces. Often pancetta is sold in round slices at the deli counter, if you can’t find it try using un-smoked normal bacon.
Check the onions to see if they’re transparent, if they are it’s time to add in the pancetta bacon and stir everything together.
Shake in some peperoncino, red cayenne pepper, add more if you like it really spicy.
Raise the heat a little and add in some more extra virgin olive oil, it’s important that the pancetta doesn’t look dry and that you have a little oil in the bottom of the pan.
Stir everything together for 15min or until the bacon is crisp, lower the heat if it’s cooking-sizzling too much.
Once the bacon is crisp and deep brown in color take a straining spoon and remove it from the pan setting it aside. make sure to leave the oil in the pan, you probably won’t see much of the onion left.
Now slice up the whole canned tomatoes into smaller pieces and add them to the frying pan, also add the tomato juice that was in the can and let simmer on low to medium heat.
Stir everything around and add a pinch or two of salt for seasoning. This is also a good time to cook the spaghetti which takes about 10min if your water is ready.
After about 10 minutes of simmering when some of the liquid has reduced or evaporated turn off the heat and add the pancetta bacon back in. make sure to stir it in well.
Drain the spaghetti once it’s cooked, add it back to the pot it was cooked in, then add in some amatriciana sauce and mix it around.
To serve put a couple table spoons of amatriciani sauce on top of the spaghetti, then some grated pecorino romano cheese.
it's about italian food
and sharing how we make it from our kitchen in florence, italy. we enjoy cooking and learning new recipes and hope you will too. buon appetito, and thanks for stopping by. more
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what does 'al dente' really mean
to the tooth, or so your teeth can feel it. ‘dente’ means tooth in italian and ‘al’ means ‘too’ in this case. when eating spaghetti if the center is slightly hard the teeth will feel it.
tomatoes and history
History and distribution of tomatoes from wikipedia. In italy it reads “Eventually the peasant classes discovered that it could be eaten when more desirable food was scarce”. More desirable foods must of been meat dishes.
season to taste
Taste is important, following recommendations of a recipe are good but not always the way you may like it. Look over the ingredients to see which are going to add more seasoning than others, like bacon or pancetta which will add a saltly flavor when cooked.
farm fresh
If you live in a city or town that has local farmstands or a store that sells locally grown produce it’s worth the extra trip. some of the best produce we’ve been lucky to cook with has come from some of these small growers and sellers.
