Cooking Club

Part 3

Yesterday, on our way to Rome where we’re spending this long summery weekend, I’ve thought: is there a better way to introduce my first Rome story than a cooking club post? Answer is no, of course.. so once arrived we went to the local market to get all ingredients and we had a delicious dinner at our Airbnb, cooking Amatriciana and drinking wine. To be totally honest, this time Thom has been both the chef and the photographer, I’m just putting together few words, trying to manifest how delicious it came out.

Ingredients for 2 serves:

200gr rigatoni pasta, I personally really love Garofalo

2 thick slice of guanciale (not pancetta!!)

Half bottle of tomato puree, Mutti is my favorite (the qty is really personal, it depends how saucy you like the pasta)

A few less than half of a glass of red wine

Chilli flakes

Pecorino romano (not parmesan cheese!!)

Salt

Basil, to serve

Instructions:

First step first when you want to make pasta, put water and salt in a pot and bring it to the boil. While the water gets hot, we can prepare the sauce.

Cut guanciale in small cubes and get it brown in a wide pan without anything else, when it starts becoming glossy, it’s the moment to drop in the wine and wait for guanciale becoming dark and crunchy. The flame is always lively and you should be careful to not burn everything. When it’s ready, remove it from the pan and put it on some kitchen paper, that will absorb the extra fat.

Second, drop tomato puree in the pan where we have roasted guanciale with wine (without cleaning it, of course), add chilli flakes, salt and pepper and let it cook for approx 15mins. Now the flame is a bit softer and sweeter.

Drop the pasta and while it cooks, grate a lot of pecorino, that we’ll use to stir pasta with sauce and guanciale that we’ve put aside.

Choose a nice plate and serve your amatriciana with some pecorino, guanciale and basil on top. Eat it slow, taste it with a nice glass of red wine and I’m sure you’ll dream of Rome a lot tonight!

xx A.