Pasta Amatriciana

Today was a fairly typical Tuesday, it got to 4.30 and we didn’t have anything planned for dinner. Fred still isn’t feeling very well and I have tooth ache so neither of us were particularly in the mood for cooking. This usually means we eat pasta so, rather than rely on one of our old favourites, I started browsing for a quick and easy recipe when I came across amatriciana. My favourite pasta dishes are tomato based and feature garlic and chilli so this ticked all the boxes.

I picked up the ingredients on the way home and then started to worry that the super-quick-idiot-proof recipe I’d found wasn’t authentic so I did some more browsing and discovered that most of the recipes were the same, they featured the same main ingredients at least and it was mostly just the method that varied.

So, I softened a chopped onion in some olive oil and then added some pancetta and cooked it for a couple of minutes. Then I added a clove of chopped garlic and a whole, chopped red chilli. Cooked for another couple of minutes before adding some tomatoes and some pepper. I left it to simmer for about 20 minutes before adding some torn basil and some grated parmesan.

It’s got potential but my version was a little too sweet, I tried to temper this by adding some lemon juice but I obviously didn’t add enough. It needed more chilli too. It was a very quick dish and had a lot of flavour so if I can sort the sweetness out then I think it could be a regular fixture.