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  • 2kg tomatoes
    - cherry, plum or ordinary - roughly chopped
  • 250g smoked bacon
    cut into strips, or cubetti di pancetta
  • 2 small red chillies
  • 500g bucatini
  • 200g pecorino
    grated

Nutrition: per serving

  • kcal747
  • fat28g
  • saturates13g
  • carbs86g
  • sugars15g
  • fibre7g
  • protein40g
  • salt3.47g
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Method

  • step 1

    Put the tomatoes into a food processor in batches and whizz to a fine pulp. Sieve into a large pan, in batches again, pressing through as much tomato as you can with a wooden spoon. Simmer for 20-30 mins until the sauce has reduced by a third to about 700ml. This homemade passata can now be frozen.

  • step 2

    Put the bacon or pancetta into a cold, large, heavy-based frying pan. Place over a medium heat – the fat will slowly melt and the bacon will cook. Add the whole chillies (don’t worry, they come out at the end) and cook for 8-10 mins with the bacon until the bacon is sizzling and golden all over. Stir in the tomato sauce, bring to the boil and simmer for 4-5 mins.

  • step 3

    Meanwhile, cook the pasta, then drain well. While still hot, tip it into the sauce, sprinkle with most of the cheese and stir well. Remove the whole chillies, dish the pasta onto plates and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

RECIPE TIPS
SEASONING

The salty pecorino cheese and smoked meat should mean there is no need to add extra salt. The chilli will add heat, so you may not need pepper.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, September 2010

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Comments, questions and tips (17)

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Overall rating

A star rating of 4.2 out of 5.19 ratings

adamjoeloliver48265

Made this with GF pasta, worked really well and was super tasty.

freddyemme

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

This is not the classic recipe. I was born in Rieti, the main town in the province where Amatrice is (the exact place where the sauce has been invented).

First the "passata" recipe is definitely wrong. You can use canned plum tomatoes, they work fine or the Italian passata you can find in every…

horatious

I always make Amatriciana Bucatini with pork cheeks, not bacon. That's how I learned to make it from an Italian recipe.

Tyler_Durden-2

Made it with shop-bought (flavoured) passata and Parmigiano as could not find Pecorino. Turned out fine, although I did add a glass or red wine to the sauce to improve the depth of flavour and also added back most of the (chopped) chilli to turn up the heat a notch.

annie0176

I think the recipe is not quite right. If you use 2 kg tomatoes, you probably have to reduce the liquid by two thirds, not one third as stated. It looks like proper passata if you do this. Also, seasoning with salt, pepper and sugar will bring out the flavour.

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