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Pasta all'Amatriciana

Pasta all'Amatriciana

“I’m in love. I’m having a relationship with my pizza” assures the main character played by Julia Roberts in “Eat, Pray, Love”, screened in 2010. Food is one of the key elements in this story about searching for essence of life — the main character gets back her taste for life by enjoying Italian cuisine.

The lockdown was a harsh time for everyone. So, why not follow the example of Liz Gilbert and treat yourself with a dish once served in a small Italian restaurant too?

Eat, Pray, Love, 2010

“Sometimes to lose balance for love is part of living a balanced life”

IMDb Ranking: 5.8

Genres: drama, melodrama

Certificate: 14+

 

Liz Gilbert is a writer and she has everything the modern woman desires — a perfect marriage and a successful career. Yet one day Liz finds herself lost and realizes she lives a completely different life from what she wants. Newly divorced she starts a journey to find herself. In her travels she discovers the joy of trying local cuisine in Italy, the power of prayer in India and finds inner balance in Indonesia.

Few interesting facts about the movie:

  • The plot is based on the autobiographical book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert (2006).
  • The man in white who sits behind Julia Roberts in Italian pizzeria “L' Antica Pizzeria da Michele” is Antonio Condurro, grandson of Michele Condurro, founder of the pizzeria.
  • “SS Lacio” and “AS Roma” are two professional soccer teams of Rome that are fierce rivals for a long time. According to the original novel by Elizabeth Gilbert, Luka Spaghetti, her Italian friend, is a fan of SS Lacio. That is the opposite of what was shown in the movie — he became AS Roma fan what enraged local SS Lacio fans.

The story behind the Amatriciana sauce

Pasta all'Amatriciana

Amatriciana is an Italian sauce that originates from the town called Amatrice in Lazio re-gion. However the sauce was created at the time the town was still a part of Abruzzo region that is famous for its wine production, one of the best in Italy: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and Trebbiano d’Abruzzo.

The predecessor of Amatriciana was gricia sauce. According to one story the name was given to the sauce due to the Gricignano village located not far from Amatrice. The main difference between these two sauces is tomatoes that gricia sauce does not include.

First recordings mentioning Amatriciana sauce date back to XVIII; it appears in “L’Apicio Moderno” book written by famous Roman chef Francesco Leonardi in 1790, which was based on the only remained cookbook of Ancient Rome. That was exactly when the tradi-tional recipe of Amatriciana sauce was “born” including pecorino and guanciale cheese, tomatoes and prosciutto pork cheek.

Nowadays pasta all’Amatriciana is considered to be one of the classic dishes of Roman cuisine. It is interesting to know that it is pronounced as “matriciana” in Romanesco dialect, which is a typical example of the vowel becoming silent in the unstressed position.

Amatriciana sauce is popular in every corner of Italy, however it has its own features de-pending on the region: in one of them it’s obligatory to add sauté garlic and onion (fried with olive oil) and some locals are using Amatriciana sheep cheese instead of pecorino cheese. The various types of garnish include spaghetti, rigatoni or bucatini.

The best wine served with Pasta all’Amatriciana is oaky red wine with a balanced level of tannins.

Pasta all’Amatriciana recipe

Pasta all'Amatriciana

Ingredients:

  • 400 g spaghetti
  • 5 medium tomatoes
  • 120 g guanciale (you can use bacon or prosciutto as well)
  • 100 g pecorino cheese (or parmesan cheese)
  • 150 ml dry white wine
  • 3 cloves of garlic (because I can’t imagine any Italian dish without it)
  • ½ tsp chili pepper flakes
  • salt, pepper and olive oil to taste.

1. In a deep frying pan heat 1 Tsp of olive oil. Crush the garlic with a knife and cut into small pieces. Fry 1-2 minutes.

2. Cut guanciale into medium slices. Roast in the frying pan until golden. Add chili pepper and white wine and give it a good stir. Wait until the wine is half evaporate.

3. Wash tomatoes, cut a crosshatch on each and dunk them into boiling water for half a mi-nute. Peel tomatoes and mash with a fork in a bowl. Add mashed tomatoes to the frying pan and stir again. Add a pinch of salt but, please, be careful, because guanciale is a quite salty product itself. Simmer the sauce on low heat until thick. Usually it will take about 10-15 minutes. Try it before it’s ready; add some sugar if the sauce is too sour.

4. Put a pot with water on high heat. You can count the correct amount of water according to this reference: 1 liter of water for every 100 g of spaghetti. Salt the boiling water and put pasta in it. It is better to cook pasta al dente — when it’s ready but still not bland.

5. In the frying pan mix pasta together with sauce, add 1 glass of water spaghetti was cooked in. Turn off the heat, add a half of the grated cheese and give it a stir.

6. Serve spaghetti all’Amatrichiana sprinkled with the rest of pecorino cheese.

 

One of the messages of “Eat, Pray, Love”, both of the book and the movie, is that it’s im-portant to enjoy your life. So, have a pleasant and relaxing evening with tasty meal and lovely movie that is perfect for creating a special summer mood. And of course don’t forget to invite your loved ones to join you!

Author: Kira Shmeleva
Translation: Inna Guseva