Bucatini all'Amatriciana

Ingredients

• 400 g bucatini or spaghetti
• 200 g guanciale or pancetta, cut into thick strips
• 1 tin of plum tomatoes
• 1 tsp chilli flakes
• 80 g pecorino romano, finely grated
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method

1. Render the pork slowly

   Start the guanciale in a cold pan with the oil over a low heat and let the fat run out gradually until the strips are crisp at the edges but still chewy in the middle. Rushed on a high heat it goes hard and the fat stays in it, and that fat is the sauce.

   10 min

2. Tomatoes into the fat

   Lift out half the pork to keep crisp, then crush the tomatoes into the rendered fat with the chilli and simmer until it darkens and thickens.

   15 min

3. Cook the pasta short

   Boil the pasta two minutes under the packet time. Bucatini is thick and takes longer than it looks, so taste rather than trusting the clock.

4. Finish in the pan

   Drag the pasta into the sauce with a splash of its water and toss over the heat for the last two minutes so it finishes cooking in the tomato.

   2 min

5. Cheese off the heat

   Take the pan off the heat before stirring in the pecorino, then scatter the reserved crisp pork on top. On the heat the cheese seizes into strings instead of melting into the sauce.