Caprese Salad
Italian National FoodCaprese salad, referred to as "Insalata Caprese" in Italian, is a quintessential dish that captures the fundamental principles of Italian culinary tradition. Originally from the…
Penne Alla Amatriciana, with its classic pasta cooking, captures a major part of Italian gastronomic legacy. Coming from Amatrice in the Lazio area, this dish has become a staple of Italian cuisine thanks to its strong tastes and simple but satisfying ingredients. The dish’s beginnings are in the late 18th century, when shepherds made a simple pasta sauce with tomatoes, pecorino cheese, and guanciale—cured pork cheek. Penne pasta, guanciale, tomatoes, pecorino Romano cheese, red chili flakes, olive oil—the basic ingredients.
Sautéing the guanciale until it gets a crispy texture, adding chili flakes to improve the heat of the oil, simmering the tomatoes, and lastly mixing them with the sauce constitute preparation. Then the cooked penne are mixed with the sauce and finished with grated Pecorino Romano.
Beyond its reputation as only a pasta dish, Penne Alla Amatriciana is a major component of Italian culinary history. A major earthquake struck Amatrice in 2016, thus restaurants and chefs all around started making this meal as a show of solidarity. Among the several options you should take into account are replacing bucatini or spaghetti in place of penne, adding onions or garlic to improve taste, substituting pancetta or bacon for guanciale, or including white wine into the sauce.
4
servings10
minutes30
minutes480
kcalPenne Alla Amatriciana takes its name from a small town in the foothills of the Apennines, where shepherds first combined cured pork jowl and summer tomatoes to sustain themselves between flocks. In this rendition, al dente penne becomes the vessel for a sauce both austere and resonant: diced guanciale rendered until edges crisp in a pool of olive oil; a single red chili releasing a subtle warmth; and San Marzano tomatoes crushed by hand, their flesh bright and slightly sweet against the salty fat. Once the pasta has finished its brief swim in heavily salted water, it is lifted directly into the pan, where a ladle of starchy cooking liquid binds sauce to tube. The strands of steam rising from the pan carry the promise of pecorino’s sharp tang, folded in just before serving. Each portion is finished with a scattering of cheese and a few turns of black pepper, the heat coaxing a fine, crumbly snow over the glistening tubes. A glass of robust red wine, perhaps a local Montepulciano, completes an encounter with centuries of Italian farmhouse tradition.
400 g (14 oz) penne pasta
150 g (5 oz) guanciale (or pancetta), diced
400 g (14 oz) canned San Marzano tomatoes, crushed
50 g (2 oz) Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small red chili (optional), finely chopped
Salt for pasta water
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Italian cuisine, with its emphasis on fresh ingredients, regional specialties, and time-honored cooking methods, has become synonymous with comfort, conviviality, and gastronomic excellence.
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