One of my absolute god-damn favourite pasta, it is one of the 4 Roman essential pasta that defined a typical Roman cuisine. In case you wonder, the other 3 are Cacio Pepe, Alla Gricia and Carbonara. Essentially, it calls for the same ingredients as Carbonara but substitutes the egg with tomato, and a splash of wine.
Traditionally, this dish calls for BUCATINI to be served. But anyone who has eaten bucatini before knows the absolute mess it causes when twirling the pasta on your spoon. Hence I prefer to use Spaghettoni or Rigatoni.
I only use San Marzano tomatoes for my amatriciana. And In fact, I use them practically for all of my tomato based pasta. If I cannot find those, then my next best option is either pugliese pomodoro pelati or pomodorini. Italian (either Salerno or Puglia) tomatoes are essential!
There are those fanatics who swore no onions in this dish, and another who insist that onions bring a natural sweetness to this dish. IMHO unless you are not using san Marzano tomatoes (which are naturally very sweet once you cook it down enough) then perhaps you can add a small amount of onion inside. However the original recipe does not call for onions, as the splash of wine should already add a touch of sweetness .
Chilli! This is less contentious. It IS a spicy dish to begin with, but I honestly think it’s ok to skip the chilli (if you cannot take spicy) since this dish is very flavourful already with the guanciale and tomato.
by MajesticHandle34
1 Comment
Bucatini is the Roman variant, traditionally it is with spaghetti. Amatrice is the city of spaghetti, not bucatini. Anyway, spaghetti, bucatini, or rigatoni (and mezze maniche) are all good with Amatriciana.
6th March will be International Amatriciana Day, it was announced just a few weeks ago. https://lamilano.it/en/by-the-media/International-Matriciana-Day-is-born-on-March-6th/