(Bucatini, Amatrice-style - Traditional recipe)

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400 g (14 oz) bucatini
100 g (3 1/2 oz) pork cheek or pancetta or bacon
400 g (14 oz) fresh and ripe tomatoes, cubed
40 g (1 1/2 oz) fresh young onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
40 g (1 1/2 oz) grated sharp Roman Pecorino cheese
Chilli, if you like
Salt

Time:
preparation: 20 minutes
cooking: 30 minutes
Difficulty:
easy recipe
Nutrition Facts (amount per serving):
Calories: 521 (kCal) 26 % GDA - 2182 (kJ)
Protein: 19.8 (g) 38 % GDA
Total fat: 14.3 (g) 20 % GDA
Total carbohydrate: 83.4 (g) 31 % GDA
Sugars: 8.5 (g) 9 % GDA

This first course is made with bucatini, dressed with tomato and bacon sauce and grated sharp Roman Pecorino cheese. Once
this dish was made with the poor ingredients that shepherd had. This is a simple dish but it's very tasty.
The sauce can be made with pork cheek, guanciale in Italian, (it's very difficult to find it) or pancetta (it resembles a salami-shaped roll of bacon with a higher proportion of lean to fat; it's a cold meats in Italian delicatessens) or unsmoked slab bacon.
Cut pancetta or bacon into 1/2 by 1in strips. Cook it together with oil in a wide frying pan over medium heat; stir frequently. Keep on cooking until pancetta becomes crisp and lightly browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add onion and chilli to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is soft. Mix in tomatoes and their liquid. Season to taste with salt and cook over a gentle heat for 10-15 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened. Some minutes before the end of cooking mix pancetta into the sauce.
Meanwhile, cook bucatini in a large kettle of boiling salted water according to the package directions. Drain well and dress with the sauce. Serve with grated sharp Roman Pecorino cheese.
Serve immediately.

Note

- We used 1 can (14 1/2 oz.) Italian-style tomatoes.
- If we use bacon we increase the olive oil. In this case we avoid frying bacon and onion.
We put all the ingredients in the pan and add 2 tablespoons dried chives, 2 teaspoons dried marjoram and 1/4 cup red wine. We cook for 10-15 minutes over a gentle heat or until the sauce thickens. It's tasty even in this way!

A little history

Amatrice, a small town north of Rome, in the province of Rieti, gave its name to this dish. But now it's one of the most traditional dish of the typical Roman restaurants.
It seems to be born with the fancy of the poor shepherds of this region. At the beginning this pasta hadn't tomatoes; probably it was made with pork "ciccioli" (dried fat, cubed) and grated Pecorino. Guanciale is one of the most important ingredient and it has a lower quantity in fat than pancetta; but it's very difficult to find it, in Italy too! So we use pancetta or bacon in Italy.