Food Lab Basics: POV Bucatini All'Amatriciana (Plus a Bonus Salad!)

Bucataini All'Amatriciana is one of the four classic Roman pasta dishes, and like the other three - cacio e pepe, carbonara, and alla Gricia - it's flavored with Pecorino Romano and black pepper. This guy also has some guanciale (cured pork jowl - though here I'm using some cured pork belly that's similar to pancetta), and uniquely among the four dishes, tomatoes.

It's a fast dish - the sauce can be made in the amount of time it takes to cook the pasta (though it doesn't hurt to make it in advance) - and it's one of my favorites.

Our neighbors also had some great looking arugula, so I made an arugula salad on the side (with some of my toddler's half-eaten apple and whatever cheese I could find in the fridge). Bonus science lesson on the importance of vinaigrettes.

PLEASE READ!

The coronavirus has hit many folks hard, including first responders and hospital workers, individuals and families who were already food insecure, and service industry employees who are, for the large part, currently out of a job.

My goal is to help fix both these problems in the best way I know how to contribute: organizing people, and cooking food.

If you would like to donate to our free meal fund, head to https://www.toasttab.com/wursthall/ where you can buy a boxed meal for someone in need. These boxes go directly to the frontline workers and food insecure families who have been hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. They also allow me to hire back my kitchen team to cook and pack these meals (in a safe, clean way). So far we have served nearly 500 meals, and the number goes up every week.

If you would like to make a monthly recurring donation of any size, head to my Patreon account at   / kenjilopezalt  . 100% of the proceeds go directly to the free meal fund. You can also help by buying my books at bookshop.org/shop/kenjilopezalt where 100% of my sales commission goes to the free meal fund, and an additional 10% goes to independent book stores around the country.

Finally, stay safe. Here is my guide to food safety and the coronavirus, written with the consultation of virologists, food safety experts, and infectious disease specialists, and kept up to date as new research emerges: https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/f...