amatriciana sunday.

I was a great deal more social this past Sunday than I had originally anticipated.  Between a lovely, lazy brunch at Char no.4, to catching the second half of the Packers-Bears game at Pacific Standard, and then some drinks with the ladies at the local, there was hardly any time to, or for, myself.  So inbetween brunch and football, I carved out two hours, just to putter around the kitchen and work on my amatriciana sauce. 

I’ve been tinkering with this sauce for a couple of years now, experimenting with different tomato preparations — I’ve got some roasted tomato sauce, from end-of-summer tomatoes, in some ziploc bags in the freezer; this has produced the most full-bodied sauce thus far — and the onion vs. no onion dilemma, and each time I get a sauce that I absolutely love for different reasons, and I find myself not wanting to commit to one particular preparation going forward.

This time around: onions, yes; canned imported peeled Italian tomatoes instead of one of my fresh-frozen packs made from Greenmarket tomatoes; guanciale from Eataly (oddly  pre-sliced, but nonetheless it imparted a great salty-smoky flavour; particularly potent dried red pepper flakes from Buon Italia; and some fancy imported pasta to boot.  (Er, no pun intended.)   As almost always, I failed to have any pecorino on hand, but no matter: this might be my favorite version so far.  The pre-sliced guanciale made for quicker prep time, as did the canned tomatoes; and the slightly fancier pasta held the sauce quite nicely.  Next time I might add a glug of white wine to the proceedings, just to give the sauce a little more zip, but that’s a minor quibble.  I think for the time being we’ve got ourselves a winner.

PS.  Check out the knife on the right hand side in the first photograph — it was a Christmas/birthday gift from my father, an exquisite Santoku chef’s knife from Shun.  Slices onions like a dream!  (Occasionally also my fingers, but, well, it’s entirely worth it.)