Pasta Amatriciana

• Meat

  • 1 Bacon

• Produce

  • 1 Tomatoes

• Pasta & Grains

  • 4 oz Servings pasta

• Baking & Spices

  • 1 Pepper
  • 1 Salt

• Oils & Vinegars

  • 1 Olive oil

• Dairy

  • 1 Pecorino cheese

Found on spoonuniversity.com

Directions

• Wash your two tomatoes and admire their fruitful color.
• Slice them into wedges or smaller pieces. Dicing is not necessary since they will be reduced into a sauce later. We want to retain its juices and texture.
• Take your bacon out.
• Slice your bacon into small pieces. You can slice them whichever way you want to. We are really just exploiting its savory and smoky flavor similar to Guanciale.
• Ready your servings of pasta. This recipe is enough for two, but in my hand, I have one serving of spaghetti. You can use any kind of pasta, bucatini, tagliatelle, linguine, ramen (just kidding).
• Add about two cups of water into your pot. The reason we want about two cups of water is because we will be using the pasta water later to help reduce our sauce and create more depth. The more pasta, the more water. Its best to start off with less than you need because you can always add water as it boils. Drop some salt into the pot of water to help lower the heat capacity and bring to a boil.
• Place your pasta vertically and please dont snap it in half. Treat it with some respect.
• With a pasta ladle, slowly rake your gluten threads of gold into the boiling abyss.
• Rake all your pasta until all pieces have softened and none are sticking out stiffly.
• Start the timer. We should be cooking the pasta for an additional 4-5 minutes to reach Al dente. Stir your pasta with your ladle so its all evenly cooked and also to remove any potential inter-pasta sticking that might occur. Test your pasta every minute or so to see how close you are to your desired doneness.
• With a ladle or spoon, save your pasta water. As mentioned above, the right starchiness will help fuse our sauce together.
• Save the pasta water in a bowl.
• Strain your pasta. There is no need to run any water through it since we want to retain its starchiness. It actually makes our pasta seem more creamy once its added with the sauce.
• Toss your bacon slices in the same pot with the pasta emptied. Let it sweat in about medium-high heat with some pepper.
• Place in your slices of tomatoes gently because the bacon grease will start spitting at you (yeah, science).
• With a wooden spoon or spatula, press your slices of tomatoes against the walls of the pot to flatten them and release more of its umami fluids.
• Mushed up, it should look like this. Pretty spectacular.
• Flood your tomato-bacon medley with the pasta water we saved on the side.
• Add about a tablespoon of olive oil. This helps the sauce reduce while adding another complementary layer of flavor to our sauce. Put a lid on and let her go.
• Reduce it to the consistency of your choice and it should look something like this.
• The next step is to mix your pasta. I did so in a separate bowl but you could also just mix it in the pot if you have two servings of pasta. I only made one serving so I did the mixing separately. The pasta here looks especially depressing.
• Take one tablespoon of your cheese, Pecorino used here, and put it together with the sauce and pasta. Most of the cheese should melt with the heat of the sauce.
• The pasta looks a lot happier now.
• Mix it up.
• Plate and serve!