Garlic or onion? Bacon or cheek lard? There are some questions which only tradition can reply to.
Personally, I love to cook my Amatriciana sauce with onion mirepoix, tomato and cheek lard.
I know this might upset some grandmothers from Amatrice, but I love my tomato sauce to be rich in flavour and I can't renounce to onions!
How to make a tasty sauce for your Amatriciana gluten-free pasta
Living abroad means not having the chance to use my beloved homemade tomato sauce, delivered from my local farmer. However, I found a sauce that can perfectly work for my Amatriciana: Cirio tomato sauce.
During one of my last trips to Italy, I had the chance to grab an authentic piece of cheek lard that is the fundamental ingredient for the traditional Amatriciana. Are you ready to find out how I cook it?
Ingredients (for two servings):
- 300 ml of Cirio Tomato Sauce - La Passata
- 5 thick slices of cheek lard
- Half of a small red onion
- Olive oil
- Salt & Sugar
- 200 grams of gluten-free pasta
The making:
Put some olive oil and chop half of a small red onion in a pan. Cook the onion on a low heat to make your mirepoix. In the meantime, boil a pot of water to cook the pasta.
Cut the cheek lard into little pieces and add it to the mirepoix: make sure you remove the pork rinds and use the fat part to give flavour to your sauce.
After the cheek lard lost all the fat into the mirepoix remove the meat and put it in a plate. You can now add the tomato sauce to the mirepoix and cook it for 30/40 minutes. This is the moment to add a touch of salt and a touch of sugar to regulate tomato acidity.
Depending on the gluten-free pasta cooking time, you can start cooking the pasta meanwhile the sauce becomes thick: do not forget to add some water to the sauce meanwhile cooking, it will help preventing it from burning.
When the pasta is cooked, just add cheek lard to your tomato sauce and mix the pasta in the same pan: Amatriciana is ready!
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