Recently, I've been interested in pasta but I've been shying away from the traditional pasta and sauce that has been a kitchen staple in my house for decades. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I've been craving some variety.
I've done well with cream sauce variations, so I felt it was time to try to find some tomato based recipes that are a little off the beaten path. Enter Rigatoni with Bacon, Onion and Balsamic.
Typically, when I settle on a recipe, such as Bolognese or Carbonara, I can find it countless times on the internet and I use those recipes to pick what I feel is the best of each of those and then concoct my own. I found this recipe exactly twice on the internet, both times under it's Italian name - Mezze Maniche All'Amatriciana a Modena - or in layman's terms, Rigatoni with Bacon, Onion and Balsamic.
The bacon here is an absolute euphymism because the true recipe calls for guanciale, also known as pork jowl or pork cheek. It is a fat piece of meat that is typically cured and where it veers off the path of bacon or pancetta is that bacon and pancetta are cut from the belly and guanciale is cut from the jowl, or close to the face. They are all cured, typically, pancetta and guanciale are usually aged, and all of them can be smoked, although that varies. Guanciale is rich and salty and a little goes a long way. You probably won't find it in your run-of-the-mill grocery store, and even at a specialty butcher's shop it still may be nonexistent. The FDA has banned import of this meat, so if you are going to find it, it'll most likely be from the US or possibly Canada. I've seen it locally around the holidays and even managed to nab some last Christmas at Wegman's in Natick, but recently, for this dish, I came up short. Hence - the pancetta. Don't feel bad about substituting - it's what we have to do in the culinary Back Hole of Western Mass.
The remaining ingredients in this traditional dish couldn't be more simple. Some canned San Marzano tomatoes, pasta, oil, onion/garlic, cheese... it came together quickly and tasted good enough for company, so that's definitely a winner!
The meal starts with some prep work- a few tomatoes needed to be chopped, the rest needed to be pureed, the cheese needed to be shredded. And of course, the pasta water was put on the stove top and brought to a boil.
You could use any pasta here really, but traditionally, the recipe called for some sort of tube pasta with deep grooves for catching all of that wonderful sauce. I opted for bronze cut rigatoni and I was pleased with it in the end result.
By definition, a pasta cut with a bronze die is literally pasta dough that passes through a die mold made of bronze. The idea is that it will create a more coarse cut and can thin the pasta out just a little better, resulting in a light pasta that catches all of the sauce. Most commercially made pasta is passed through Teflon coated dies, and although it makes the pasta look shiny and smooth, it does very little in the way of keeping your sauce on the noodle.
Now, if you are going to ask me if the extra buck or two is worth it, I'm going to answer honestly and tell you I have no idea. It seems to be better... But I will also tell you that if I am bothering to track down and pay for real guanciale and San Marzano tomatoes or any other unique, elusive or expensive ingredient, well then I am also going to follow suit with the rest of the ingredients, dollar be damned! Could I have made this pasta myself? Yes, of course, but a smart cook knows where to draw the line - and this midweek, after work meal was getting all the TLC I could muster that night, so bagged, bronze die cut rigatoni it was!
Once the ingredients were in their place, it was time to get frying.
The pork is fried but most of the grease is retained for frying up the onion (and garlic, if using) later. The onion is caramelized, read that as "cooked for a really long time" and since the recipe is basic with few ingredients, I would take this one slow and do it right. (about 30 minutes) The slow cooked, caramelized onion will add a lot of flavor to this dish so practice your patience.
When the onion is done, balsamic vinegar and the tomatoes are added. Once simmering, it too cooks for a long time (another 30 minutes) and if done properly, it will thicken very nicely. Towards the end of the cooking time, throw 3/4 of the cooked bacon into the sauce and boil the pasta al dente (firm to the bite) and drain. Do not rinse the pasta - the starch will help bind the sauce. You can also keep a little pasta water; the starchy water added back in will also act as an excellent binder for sauces.
To serve it up, add the cheese into the sauce, add a little sauce to the starchy noodles and toss. The pasta can now be plated and let each person spoon more sauce over the noodles as desired. The rest of the bacon as well as more shredded cheese can be added to the top.
Of the two recipes I found for this meal, one called for olive oil to be drizzled across the top and the other did not. Confused, I did a little research and found that many Italian dishes call for olive oil to be drizzled over the top. Why? Well, because it helps the sauce amalgamate and it adds so much flavor. Americans tend to really ease up on oil because we have been taught to fear fat. (It cracks me up that in the land of excess and way too much, we ease up on olive oil!) But in fact, an ample dose of olive oil doesn’t impart a greasiness to any Italian dish, nor does it leave a fatty coating in the mouth the way that animal fats do; it instead creates a nice mouth feel, a richness and can help enhance the flavors of the other ingredients. BUT, and this is a big but, I don't think this concept of "oil on your Italian dishes" is intended for your $5 bottle of standard grocery store oil. It means your high quality, top shelf, first cold pressed oil. If you have never taste tested olive oils, do it! This is an area that I can tell you with first hand knowledge, makes a big difference. If you find this interesting and want to read a little more on what makes an olive oil "good" or "bad" - read this. But after digging into this concept a bit, I opted for the olive oil drizzle and will continue to do so from here on out.
And that was it! I really liked this recipe. The original recipe did not have garlic, garlic powder or sugar, but I used just a little bit to reduce the natural tang of the tomatoes. It was delicious. If you try Rigatoni with Bacon, Onion and Balsamic, come back and let me know what you think. Enjoy!
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