Pasta Amatriciana: step by step recipe, ingredients, cooking features

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

In Italian cuisine, a must-have addition to any pasta is sauce. It completely defines the taste of the dish. Italians believe that pasta cannot exist without sauce. He knows how to cook in every home. With great certainty, we can say that each region of Italy boasts its own sauce. In Liguria it is pesto, in Bologna it is bolognese, in Lazio it is carbonara. In the latter region, another sauce has become widespread - Amatriciana. A photo and a pasta recipe with it are presented in our article.

History of the dish

Traditional Italian sauce got its name from the small town of Amatrice, located in the Lazio region. Its history spans over 200 years. Amatriciana was originally known as grici sauce and was prepared without tomatoes. Its mainthe ingredients then and today remain virtually unchanged. It's pork cheek and sheep's pecorino cheese.

Amatriciana tomato sauce was invented at the end of the 18th century. The first mention of it dates back to 1790 and is found in one famous cookbook by the Roman chef Francesco Leonardi.

Amatrice's close ties with Rome by the beginning of the 19th century made this sauce especially popular in the capital of Italy. Gradually, it spread throughout the Lazio region, while undergoing some changes. In the Roman dialect, the name of this sauce sounds like matrichana, that is, without the first unstressed vowel. Under this name, the dish is served in the capital's Italian restaurants today.

Almost every town or village has its own recipe for Amatriciana pasta. In some places, onions are not used in cooking, or garlic is additionally added. Different types of cheeses are also used, and not just the classic pecorino. But this makes the dish no less tasty, juicy and full.

Classic Amatriciana Pasta Recipe

The actual preparation of the dish consists of two main steps:

1. Boiling pasta.
2. Cooking tomato sauce in a pan.

Classic Amatriciana pasta will taste better if you take into account the following nuances:

1. The sauce is traditionally served with spaghetti or bucatini.
2. Garlic for Amatriciana is recommended not to grind through a press, but cut into small pieces and fry in a pan with othersingredients.
3. Instead of pecorino cheese, Parmesan can be used in the preparation of the sauce. The dish will turn out no less tasty.

Amatriciana pasta ingredients

The amount of food indicated in the recipe will be enough for two servings of the dish. Amatriciana pasta is made with the following ingredients:

• bucatini - 250 g;
• tomatoes - 400 g;
• onion - 1 piece;
• pork brisket - 350 g;
• olive oil - 50 ml;
• hot pepper - 1 pc.;
• s alt - ½ tsp;
• black peppercorns - 3 pcs

Additionally, you can use any spices to taste. For example, garlic, basil, nutmeg are traditionally added to Italian sauces. As a result, the dish will be more aromatic.

Amatriciana sauce step by step

During the cooking process, it is recommended to follow the following sequence of actions:

1. Ripe and fleshy tomatoes wash, then make cross cuts on top of them, put in a small saucepan and pour boiling water. After 15 minutes, the skin from the tomatoes can be easily removed by hand. Cut the peeled tomatoes in half, remove the seeds from them and chop in a blender.
2. Chop the onion with a knife and fry in hot olive oil.
3. Cut the pork belly into small pieces and transfer to the pan with the almost ready onion.
4. Peppercorns crushed in a mortar. Add them to the brisket with onions along with s alt and otherspices.
5. Stir the contents of the pan and continue cooking for another ten minutes.
6. Add tomato puree and add half a glass of boiling water. Taste for s alt.
7. Reduce heat to low and cover the pan with a lid. Simmer for about 2 hours. The sauce should barely boil. Monitor fluid level. If it boils away quickly, you can add a little more water or dry white wine.
8. As a result of prolonged languishing, the amatriciana will turn out to be homogeneous and glossy.

Dish decoration

When the sauce is almost ready, you can start pasta. Bucatini is ideal for this dish - thin spaghetti with a hole inside, resembling long tubules in appearance. For them, boil a large amount of water in a saucepan and add s alt. After that, dip the pasta into boiling water and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring constantly, according to the instructions on the package.

Put the finished bucatini in a colander, wait until the water drains and transfer them to the pan with the Amatriciana sauce. Mix the pasta, arrange on plates and sprinkle with grated cheese. For one serving, you need to take about 20 grams of sheep pecorino. Serve the dish immediately after cooking and exclusively hot.

Spaghetti al Amatriciana according to Yu. Vysotskaya's recipe

A famous culinary specialist prepares Amatriciana pasta as follows:

1. Pour olive oil (1 tbsp.) into a frying pan, heat it up and lay out thinly sliced bacon (100grams).
2. After 1 minute, add finely chopped garlic (2 cloves) and onion (½ pcs.).
3. Fry vegetables with bacon over medium heat until golden brown.
4. Add tomatoes in their own juice (250 ml) to the pan. Stir almost ready sauce, add s alt (⅔ h. l.) and a pinch of black pepper.
5. Pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil into a pot of s alted water. Put the spaghetti in it and cook them until al dente.
6. Discard the finished pasta in a colander.
7. In a pan, combine spaghetti with sauce and mix. Sprinkle with fresh basil when serving.