Linguine All’Amatriciana
(Adapted from an Anne Burrell recipe)
When I come home from college, I bring my appetite because my mom is truly a fabulous cook. She is the one who really got me interested in cooking and food in the first place…I mean lets face it, serious “foodies” are not the kind of people who were raised on SpaghettiOs and Ramen Noodle Soup. In fact, I had never even tasted jarred tomato sauce until college!! My mom always cooked gourmet meals when I was growing up and so she taught me to appreciate the flavors of fresh herbs and vegetables at an early age, which slowly developed into a passion as I got older.
Although I love all of my mom’s food, I love her pasta dishes the most! Tonight, her and I cooked out a box of linguine and made a trio of pasta sauces to have a little Italian pasta sampling of sorts! I made my Pesto recipe (which I have blogged about), and my mom made an impromptu Walnut Sage Sauce (which I will blog about) and an Amatriciana Sauce (which I am blogging about). This Amatriciana sauce is an excellent and easy red sauce to make for any kind of pasta, even though I prefer it with linguine. The pancetta gives a great hearty depth of flavor to the sauce and the San Marzano tomatoes are so sweet and delicious. It is really important that you spend the extra $1.50 and buy the San Marzano tomatoes for this dish, because other brands do not taste the same. There isn’t too much more to say about this simple sauce other than that it is delicious, so enjoy!
Ohhh, there is just one more thing that makes this sauce even better…it freezes really well! So if you set some aside before tossing in the pasta, you can put it in the freezer and enjoy it a couple weeks later!
Ingredients
Extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces Pancetta (cut into small bits)
1 ½ large Spanish onions (diced)
½ to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
2 (28-Ounce) cans San Marzano tomatoes, passed through the food mill
**Seeds make the sauce bitter
1 pound linguine
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus extra for garnish
Directions
Coat a large saucepan with oil and allow pancetta to cook over low heat until brown and crispy. Remove and set aside the pancetta and then increase saucepan to medium heat, adding the onions and crushed red pepper. Season generously with kosher salt, to taste. Cook onions until they are translucent and turning golden. Add the tomatoes and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the sauce for about 1 hour, tasting periodically. Adjust the salt, as needed.
Bring a large pot of well-salted water (should be as salty as the Dead Sea) to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook al dente (about 1 minute less than the instructions on package call for). Then drain the pasta and add it directly to the pan of sauce. DO NOT rinse the pasta because then the sauce will not adhere to it!! Stir to coat the pasta with sauce, then add in the cheese and drizzle with a little olive oil. Toss to coat and serve with additional shaved Parmesan and fresh chopped basil!
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