The wonderful world of spaghetti.

As a small child I righteously believed that spaghetti came out of small yellow cans, festooned in a sickly sweet tomato sauce.  I was also of the persuasion that spaghetti was not straight, and neither long - it was most definitely of toroidal origin.

Of course, as we all get older we find out that it is in fact grown on trees...

You might have seen one of my earlier posts talking about the compatibility of certain types of pasta, with specific sauces.  Bolognese is definitely not compatible with spaghetti (although I am very content to both make it and eat it).

One dish that certainly does marry very well with spaghetti is "Spaghetti all'amatriciana", though the Italians will tell you that really it should be made with bucatini.  I find it very difficult to find bucatini in England, so I either use spaghetti or, as in this case, linguine.

Originally this sauce, from the Lazio region uses guanciale, which is essentially a bacon, but exclusively made from pork cheeks.  This, alas is also very hard to find in England.  It is for this reason that most anglicized versions of this sauce are made either with pancetta or streaky bacon.

In essence it's very easy to make.  For authenticity you should use pecorino romano, but I didn't have any so I used the slightly more pungent parmagiano reggiano.  Here's the recipe:

•   Fry 5 or 6 pieces of thinly sliced streaky bacon, or even better if you have it, some pancetta, in a few glugs of regular olive oil.
•   When the bacon is crispy, but not frazzled remove it.
•   Add one finely chopped onion to the pan, which is now quite oily from the rendered bacon fat.  Cook the onion until it has softened.
•   Add two finely chopped cloves of garlic.  Stir in the pan and soften for 2 minutes.
•   Add one tin of peeled plum tomatoes.  Break apart with a spoon (or I like to squash them up with a potato masher).
•   Season with a lot of black pepper - do not add salt yet (the bacon fat and indeed the bacon itself is salty).
•   At this stage I add a few glugs of worcestershire sauce (this is not authentic, as you can imagine, but it seriously enhances the sauce).
•   Cook the tomato sauce for 30-45 minutes to reduce it, and remove some of the water content.
•   Meanwhile, in a large pan of rapidly boiling salted water add the spaghetti, or bucatini.  Cook it until al dente, which in most cases for dried pasta is roughly 7-8 minutes.  
•   Drain the pasta.  Add it to the sauce and stir to coat each strand.
•   Cut the bacon into strips and add to the sauce.  Stir.
•   Check the seasoning.  Usually I do not add any salt.  
•   Serve in a bowl.  Finely grate your pecorino, or parmegiano over the top.