pici all'amatriciana
tuscan pici in amatriciana sauce
If you've never tried them, Pici are like the biggest, baddest (in a good way!) spaghetti you can possibly imagine - thick and chewy and perfect for a huge range of pasta sauces.
Here I've paired them with a classic Amatriciana tomato sauce, which has a fascinating history and whose ingredients have actually changed over the years. This is the 'modern' or 'purist' variation of the recipe, which uses just three ingredients: guanciale, pecorino and tomatoes. (In the past, onions were often featured as an essential ingredient and indeed many cooks used to include pancetta instead of guanciale, or even add garlic...).
I've used Fratelli Camisa's excellent Leoncini Guanciale Stagionato in my version - if you like cooking sauces like Carbonara and Alla Gricia, it's definitely worth getting hold of a pack!
In Rome and Umbria, Amatriciana is traditionally served with classic spaghetti, though you'll often see it on Bucatini (thicker than spaghetti with a little whole running down the middle of each strand). Amatriciana is also very popular throughout Tuscany where they tend to serve it with pici, and that's what I've chosen here... partly because a big part of my extended Italian family still live in Tuscany but mostly because I like a bigger, thicker, chewy strand of pasta...
I've chosen Pasta Morelli's Pici Dritti (which you'll also find on the Fratelli Camisa site)
- similar to traditional Tuscan Pici, but with a cunning feature that almost halves the boiling time. Some traditional dried pici can take almost 20 minutes to boil, but Morelli have included a bucatini-like hole down the middle which brings the cooking time down to around 11 minutes, which is quite similar to many thinner long pasta shapes.
Morelli say the hole in their pici is designed to close as the pasta cooks and swells, which means that they 'eat' almost exactly like classic pici. It also means that I probably can't get away with calling them 'bucatoni.'
Do give Amatriciana a try - easier and quicker and refreshingly different from a traditional ragù but super satisfying and almost certain to become one of your favourite sauces...
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
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prepare the ingredients
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fry the guanciale
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warm the tomato polpa
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drain the excess guanciale fat
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add the fat to the tomatoes
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stir in the pecorino and some guanciale
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boil the pasta
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plate and garnish
tuscan pici in amatriciana sauce
FOR FOUR PEOPLE
INGREDIENTS
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600g tomato polpa (Mutti)
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125g guanciale
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60-70g pecorino Romano
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white wine to taste
PASTA
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400g dry Pici Dritti
(Pasta Morelli, from Fratelli Camisa)
MANTECATURA
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none to slight
METHOD
Prepare the ingredients - grate the cheese and chop the guanciale.
Dry-fry the guanciale on a low heat, so that the fat melts it can be drained off. Cook it until it's nicely coloured but not crispy - you can add a splash of white wine during the last minute or so of cooking, let that evaporate and then drain off the fat and set it aside.
While the guanciale's cooking, put the water for the pasta on to boil and start warming the tomato polpa in wide pasta pan with low high sides. Add ground cayenne pepper to taste and add little to no salt to the sauce - there's a lot of salt going into the mix in a bit with the pecorino and guanciale!
Add the drained-off fat from the guanciale to the tomato sauce and stir it through.
When the pasta's just past the al-dente stage (I prefer my pasta with a chewy not a crunch!), fish it out of the pasta cooking water with a pasta spoon and transfer it direct to the tomato sauce. Don't throw away the cooking water. Off the heat, toss the pasta and tomato together to combine.
Begin to add the grated pecorino, to taste, as you continue to toss and combine. If things dry up too much add tiny amounts of cooking water.
Next, throw in about half the total guanciale and toss again. Add a tiny amount of starchy cooking water from the boiling pan and toss again.
Plate each portion, dividing the remaining guanciale between the servings, sprinkling it on the top of each, with maybe some extra pecorino, cayenne and/or a drizzle of oil to taste.
NUTRITION PER SERVING
KCAL: 638
Fat (g): 16.4
Sat Fat (g): 8.1
Carb (g): 80.8
Sug (g): 8.8
Fibre(g): 3.7
Prot (g): 38.2
Salt (g): 3.53
