Fat Kid Pasta Amatriciana

Ever since visiting Rome a couple of years ago, I've been recreating certain dishes and attempting to come close to the food I tasted throughout my pasta-filled journey. During my stay, I enjoyed plate after plate of Italian gastronomic perfection, to the point that you would have thought I had never seen pasta in my life. It's that good.

This adventure through carb-land highlighted many instant favorites that are simply not the same when experienced in America. Realizing that I can't simply hop on a plane to Italy whenever I want fresh pasta, I decided that I needed to learn how to make it myself. Honestly, I could have fresh pasta on it's own with nothing more than garlic, olive oil, parmesan and red pepper and still have my mind fucking blown, but I also wanted to attempt to master one of my favorite dishes that I tasted in the small town of Tivoli.

The pasta amatriciana I had in that town stood out instantly. It probably had something to do with the pork fat. I realized at that moment that I needed to make this and make it well, and I think I've finally arrived at that point. Allow me to explain.

You'll need this:

• 1 lb. of pancetta or guanciale
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• died oregano
• crushed red pepper
• salt
• pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• reggiano parmesan
• 1 lb. of fresh pasta

Start with the fatty pork goodness. You can generally find sliced pancetta in any grocery store, which you'll need to chop into strips. I got a half pound of some super-expensive-locally-made-hot-shit from some specialty store, along with a half pound of guanciale, which is harder to find, but it's what this dish is traditionally made with. But if it's not a special occasion, just head to Whole Foods.

Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into a large, cold pan and add all of your pancetta. Turn the heat to medium. You want to slowly let this stuff cook until it's crispy. Cooking it slow like this will render out the most fat, which is what you want to do in this case. It should take about 20 minutes.

Once the fat has rendered out and the pancetta is nice and crispy, remove a quarter of the pancetta from the pan and eat that shit up with a spoon like it's cereal.
Ok wait, only do that if you're alone. And I really do mean alone.
If not, reserve that pancetta for later.

At this point, add your chopped onion and stir everything together. Salt the onions generously, as this will help pull out the sweet, natural juices of the onion. Add the dried oregano, freshed cracked pepper, as well as crushed red pepper, depending on how much heat you like in your pasta sauce. Leave the heat on medium and sweat the onions until they're translucent and tender, looking like this.


Turn the heat to medium-high and add your garlic, stirring until fragrant, about a minute.
Add the crushed tomatoes and stir to incorporate.
Add the bay leaves.
Bring this up till it's nice and bubbly and reduce the heat to medium low, allowing the sauce to simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour.
Taste it throughout and adjust the seasoning as needed. I always add more salt and pepper after adding the tomatoes, because it needs it.


As the sauce is finishing up, get your pasta on sonnnn.
I am no expert on making fresh pasta. I just started making it so give me a break people. All you need is eggs, flour, a pasta roller, and Google. I found out how to make it here, so I'm not going to get into detail about that. I am going to show you pictures though.

You can use regular dried pasta if you want, I do that all the time and this is still an awesome dish. But if you want to make people O in their pants, fresh pasta will do the job every time.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt the water and add your pasta. Cook the pasta until it's almost al dente, so just a little shorter than usual. The pasta will finish cooking in the sauce.

Drain the pasta and add it back to the pot over medium heat. Spoon enough sauce out of your pot and add it to the pasta, just enough to stir and  incorporate everything to make the pasta happy. At this point, you want to pour olive oil over everything, as well as the parmesan cheese, stirring all the while. This helps marry the sauce and the pasta together. Once the pasta is cooked and fully incorporated with the sauce, turn off the heat and serve, topping with additional sauce if desired, parmesan cheese, and the reserved pancetta for a crispy garnish.

I made this for Christmas Eve dinner. In my family, we traditionally have pasta with red sauce and shrimp on Christmas Eve, so I quickly sauteed some shrimp in olive oil, which go great on top of everything as well. That's just extra though.

This takes me back to Tivoli. Pasta tastes so much better when it was just made 5 minutes before you've put it in your fat mouth. Seriously. When it's perfectly cooked and tossed in this delicious sauce, you'll forget about that Americanized-Olive-Garden-horse-shit and want to eat this all the time. I'm not being a snob people. Italians just do it better than us. We take what they do and fuck it all up.

If you're a friend of mine and dont feel like going through the trouble to make this, I'll probably make it for you in the near future, because I love doing it. But if I don't really know you, don't go emailing me, asking me to make it for you, because I'll probably get all awkward with you.

Now go eat this and say thank you to all the Italians.

- Fat Kid