Name: Penne all’Amatriciana
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: 125 g/4½ oz Parmesan, grated, plus extra to serve; sea salt and freshly ground black pepper; 4 x 400 g/14 oz cans chopped tomatoes; 500 g/1 lb 2 oz dried penne; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 600 g/1 lb 5 oz smoked pancetta, cut into strips about 5 mm/¼ inch thick and 4cm/1½ inches long; 4 red onions, finely chopped; big pinch of dried peperoncino or dried chilli flakes or 2–5 dried bird’s-eye chillies, finely chopped; 3 large sprigs of rosemary, stripped and finely chopped; 250 ml/9 fl oz red wine

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Let's Eat

By Tom Parker Bowles

Published 2013

About

This is one of the first dishes I cooked regularly after leaving university, and was a stalwart when having girls over for dinner. It took a couple of hours, smelt wondrous and tasted divine. It also gave time for a few glasses of wine. This was all about seduction via the stomach.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil
600 g/1 lb 5

Dinner

Method

Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium–high heat and fry the pancetta until crisp. Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions and cook for about 10 minutes, until soft. Add the chilli and rosemary and cook for 2 minutes.

Chuck in the wine and increase the heat to burn off the alcohol; stir to deglaze the pan. Add the tomatoes and check the seasoning.

Turn d