As I was about to press send on a new pasta made with poblano peppers - then I noticed how similar it looked to the one I sent out last month with shishitos. Luckily, I had scribbled down “string bean amatriciana” on my notepad last night - So I made it - and man oh man does it work (that is a statement not a question).
Amatriciana is the pasta dish that really got me into cooking - I’ll tell you the long story one day, but the short one is this; if you don’t have good guanciale and you don’t cook it slowly, it’s going to suck. Guanciale is an Italian cured hog jowl, it is not smoked and although it has no cinnamon in it, the good ones impart those vibes. Just cook it slowly, it WILL BROWN, don’t worry. That is all. Here are four photos over the course of a 20 minute period, with the flame at medium - you’ll notice that there’s no need for added fat, as there’s plenty in the guanciale that renders out and then begins frying the pieces.
You’ll most likely be left with too much fat to do the remainder of the cooking, so my advice is this: however much olive oil you’d use to cook onions, leave that much rendered fat in the pan. The rest can be discarded - or saved for cooking something else.
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