Hi everybody, I'm Gabriele Perilli from
the restaurant La Conca. I'm in Amatrice, in my restaurant, and I'll show you how
to make the true Amatriciana. The ingredients for Amatriciana: aged pork cheek, Pecorino cheese, tomato,
spaghetti, salt, some pepper, a piece of chili. Let's start by
cleaning the pork cheek. We're removing all the seasoned fat, cleaning it well.
We're removing some more yellowish seasoned fat,
and the pork cheek is cleaned. Then we're slowly slicing
it thin with a knife. We're removing the first,
then making stripes. We're removing the extremities, then we're making cubes, possibly uniform.
The pork cheek is ready to go to the pan. Ok, I'm turning up the flame. It's already melting, without oil. We're turning it. With a splash of white wine,
letting it evaporate. I'm adding the tomato. I'm adding some salt. Let's add a small piece of chili. The chili must fry,
otherwise it gets bitter. I'm cooking the pasta,
while the sauce is cooking. I'm stirring it until cooking point. Around 10-12 minutes,
as the client prefers it. I'm straining the spaghetti
and pouring them on the sauce. I'm thickening the spaghetti. I'm adding the Pecorino cheese and proceeding with the thickening. The pasta is ready. It's time for plating. I'm adding its sauce. I'm adding some local Pecorino. This is Amatriciana, made in Amatrice.
Greetings from Gabriele Perilli, and buon appetito, enjoy! Hi, I'm Angelo Troiani, chef
in "Il Convivio" restaurant in Rome in Via dei Soldati, 31. Today I'm showing
you Amatriciana, a representative dish for "Il Convivio", a dish I've been making
for 29 years. The ingredients are: Monograno spaghettoni, artisanal
Roman Pecorino, a vinegar mix: aged red wine vinegar, a drizzle of balsamic
vinegar, peeled tomatoes au naturel, onion, aged, pork cheek, pepper, chili.
The pork cheek must be well-aged, it's the first rule.
How can we select it when buying it? From the skin. As you can see,
it's dark, very hard, creased. I'm removing all the oxidized part, yellow. I'll obviously clean
only the right quantity to make our recipe now. I'm cutting the pork cheek quite thin,
using this to make the sauce. Here we are. Now, I'm cutting
the same amount, but with double the thickness as before.
This is the pork cheek I'm using to make the crispy pork cheek. I'm cutting it
more in a lozenge shape to make crispy sticks. I'm cross-cutting it,
taking both the fat and the lean part. Each stick must
contain both parts. It mustn't be excessively thick,
otherwise we'll taste a very sapid part, salty. Not too thin, otherwise
it's just very crisp and if the core isn't right, we'll lose some
of the flavor of the pork cheek. The onion. I'm using red or
yellow onion, depending on the season. It should be quite sweet,
as the onion can give it a sugary note, typical and recognizable, and also aromatic. Onion has its own fragrance. We're not using much of it. I'm cutting it
very thin. This is a lot, I'm not using this much. Let's now blanch the tomatoes.
I'm cutting them with a cross and after the cut
I'm shortly throwing them for a few seconds, about ten, depending
on the ripening of the tomato, in boiling water, then we're splashing and
immersing them in cold, icy water. This is made to stop the initial
phase of cooking. Once the tomato is cold, I'm peeling it, so I'm removing the skin only, without
the underlying pulp. Under the skin there's flavor, but lots of nutritional
elements as well, this is why it's better to risk almost undercooking it
than overcooking it. Next, I'm cutting it, removing
the green part and mincing the tomato. I'm mincing it well, without leaving
any pieces, or the whole flavor of the tomato will stay and the alchemy
that turns the simple tomato sauce with the pork cheek into
Amatriciana doesn't happen. My tip is to always mince it with the knife, without
using a mixer, as the quick blade cut incorporates air and
the sauce will be lighter, less characteristic. I'm cleaning the Pecorino.
The paste is yellow. Can you notice the abundant white dots?
These dots are the proteic quantity. The more the dots in the aged cheese, the higher the proteic value and
the better the aging. I'm cleaning a piece of it only. Let's heat the pan and throw the
thin-cut pork cheek in. As the pan gets hotter, the slices of pork
cheek will separate. In this lower sauté, I'm frying the crisp pork cheek. I'm not using any other fat,
as I established the quantity of fat and lean before.
Now, as the pan gets some heat, I'm lowering the flame.
The pork cheek needs the right time to slowly melt in its own fat
and the fat must stay white so it doesn't get bitter,
undigestible and unhealthy. Now the onion is releasing water
and this is stpping the cooking of the pork cheek. I'm adding a drizzle of vinegar.
As you can see, it's separating. As the vinegar starts to separate from the fat, it's done.
I partially characterized the sugars, partially
maintaining the acidity of the vinegar. So, as I was saying before, peeled tomato
au naturel, without any sauce nor puree and a part of fresh red tomato. The
fragrances of the pork cheek, fresh pepper, must stay whole and for this to happen,
we can't cook it for longer than an amount of time. So,
I'm now throwing the pasta in. A big spaghetti, 14 minutes cooking.
I'm stopping it at 12. A pinch of salt. Only a pinch of chili
is missing, to taste. Amatriciana is a quite spicy dish, so there's chili
and also some pepper. It wasn't in the pork cheek as
we removed it, it was old and salty pepper. Here, instead, it's fresh. The first part
of the pork cheek with its cooking fat. This is the pork cheek I'm using to
complete the Amatriciana, the crisp part. A moment before the pasta is
done, I'm removing the pork cheek I used to make the sauce. As you can see, it's
exhausted now and released everything to the sauce, as I wished. I'm now removing it
and switching it with the crisp pork cheek. I'm using double of
the pork cheek I'm supposed to use, but the quantity is the same,
also for what I'm eating, as I'm removing a part of it. Now,
for the pasta, I'm using a very dry and dense sauce, so that with
a couple of tosses the sauce combines with the pasta, without removing starch
from the pasta and obtaining well-defined flavors. I'm adding Pecorino to finish,
working it very little as it doesn't have to melt,
it has to stick to the pasta without melting. The pasta is cooked, much
"al dente". I'm straining it well. The sauce immediately sticks to the pasta.
I like "dry" pasta, so without sticking and without fat
leaking. Pecorino, coarse. We're now proceeding with the plating. As
you can see, the sauce sticks to the pasta firmly, you can still notice
the white dots in the Pecorino. I'm finishing it with the crisp pork
cheek and some more Pecorino. And the plate is done!
Ciao!
