Bucatini all’Amatriciana, try saying that three times fast or if you are me, at all. I’m going to go ahead and tell you right now that Bon Appetit is batting a thousand in our house this week as this was also an Emily and David favorite, hands down.
Still with me or have you gone to the store to get the ingredients? Good.
I looked up the translation of this dish and of course the first link that comes up on Google is from none other than the Italian Chef god, Croc wearing and super gentle Mario Batali from the Babbo restaurant website. Let’s all gather around and see what they have to say:
This dish is one of the most celebrated in Italian cuisine and a favorite here at Babbo. Named for the tiny town of Amatrice, located 100 miles east of Lazio from Abruzzo this dish can be made both with or without tomatoes. Ever since Abbruzzese shepherds begin the tradition of eating this spicy pasta after a day in the chilly mountain air, the cooking process has always begun with the rich smell of a fatty piece of pork bubbling in the pan. At Babbo, we use our homemade guanciale, or cured pig jowls, with its distinct pork flavor, to achieve the same rich taste that comforted the shepherds of old.
If you count shepherding around a lot of pie plates, Crimps, bags, ties, labels and then cooking in the kitchen for hours, I was one tired shepherd last night. I decided to prep the sauce before I left and then came home to boil the spaghetti. I simply combined the drained spaghetti with the sauce and dinner was d.o.n.e. We ate this with abandon. Like there was no tomorrow and this was our last meal. OK, a little dramatic. But we did slurp this and both went back for seconds. So rustic, so deep in flavor, so simple and so authentically Italian. Make this, now, no, no, go on, go to the store. I want to hear your reviews after you’ve tried it for yourself!
