Spaghetti all'amatriciana was one of the first non-bolognese pasta dishes I cooked. It remains one of my favourites. Easy. Delicious. Comforting: you can't say no to a combination of pasta, chilli, cured pork and tomato.
Now. Tomatoes. You see, canned tomatoes used to be a staple in my diet. Most of the time when I was cooking a pasta sauce, I'd use a can or two of tomatoes. I'd use canned tomatoes in dishes like chicken cacciatore. I just realised today, as I sorted through a tub of tomatoes to find the good ones, that I stopped buying canned tomatoes. I think Larousse Gastronomique has something to do with that. The recipes just don't call for canned products. The only canned products I can recall buying, 99 recipes in to the book, are anchovies and tuna. And even then, I think I have to buy maybe one more can of tuna. Not bad for 3800+ recipes.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with canned tomatoes. Like canned beans, they're a convinience worth having in stock in the pantry. Just in case, you know. But I've found that using fresh tomatoes--and I'm not talking about expensive hierloom tomatoes here, as I'm not made of money--lightens dishes. A friend reckons that canned tomatoes have a better flavour but I disagree. I mean, I used to agree, but as I've fallen deeper down the rabbit hole of French cooking and started eating at nice restaurants, I've started to develop an appreciation for subtlety. Canned tomatoes, especially Italian ones, offer a flavour that's ... abrupt. So no more canned tomatoes for me.
Aside from the use of fresh tomatoes in place of canned tomatoes, Larousse Gastronomique's version of all'amatriciana sauce is the same as other recipes I've used. Simply fry up some cubes of pancetta (Wikipedia says it's more traditional to use cured cheek, though) with a little bit of fresh garlic and chilli. I'm using one of the habaneros from the pot plant I purchased a few weeks ago. Deglaze the pan with a little bit of dry white wine and then add your peeled and crushed tomatoes. Simmer until the liquid has evaportated and then stir through your spaghetti.
In making the sauce, I borrowed from the tomato sauce recipe. After peeling the tomatoes I cut them into large chunks. These I stewed in the saucepan for about half a hour with the lid on: the idea being that I wanted a sauce with texture but without great lumps recognisable as tomato. Once the tomatoes had broken down a bit I removed the lid from the pan and reduced and reduced and reduced until the sauce was thick but still moist enough to coat the pasta.
A winner.
Powdered parmesan?!?!?!
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