I cook in phases. I get so into one thing that I obsess over it, cook it non-stop, learn it by heart and eat it constantly. However, like all phases, it passes. And then 4 months later I try to re-make said obsessive dish, and have forgotten it completely. My lack of memory never ceases to amaze me.
My current obsession is Beatrice's Amatriciana. As simple as it is I am worried in a couple months I will forget it all, so below are the details. This is a bit of a non-recipe recipe, and can easily be adapted for quantities and whatever you have on hand.
Ingredients:
About 40g Cubed Pancetta per person (Traditionally Guancale is called for, however I can never find any in London)
Spaghetti (I use about 1/3 packet per person as a main dish)
Passata (I use about 1/4 per packet)
1 teaspoon sugar
Optional: A pinch of chili flakes
Method:
Heat up the pan. When hot, add pancetta to the dry pan. In the meantime boil the water for the pasta. Once boiling add salt and pasta in a separate pot.
When the pancetta becomes crispy on all sides, add chili flakes. After 2 minutes, add Passata and sugar. I add enough Passata to slightly cover all the pancetta in the pan. Stir and let this cook on low heat.
Once the pasta is 90% cooked through transfer to the sauce pan with 2 ladles pasta water. Cook for the remainder of the time in the pan. By the time the pasta is done, the sauce should have reduced down again to what it was pre-pasta water addition.
Serve with Parmesan.
Notes:
As basic as it sounds, it took me a long time to learn this - Pasta is like a sponge. If you cook pasta 100% in the water and then transfer to the sauce, it will no longer be able to absorb any sauce as it is already fully saturated with just water. This is why you want to transfer the pasta to the sauce when 90% cooked; the last 10% of absorption will be sauce.
Adding pasta water to a sauce helps for pasta absorption, and it allows the sauce to emulsify. This idea of emulsifying also took me a while to learn. You want the pasta and sauce to become one. This will only happen if the sauce becomes more similar to pasta, and vice versa. Pasta water is that 'binder', it is similar to both the sauce and pasta and will therefore help them become one.
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