Pasta alla Gricia
From the somber mountain village of Amatrice in the Abruzzo—one of the areas from which have emigrated, to other regions of Italy and throughout the world, many cooks and chefs—was born the famous pasta all’ Amatriciana, prepared faithfully by the pilgrim cooks wherever they go. One evening in Rome, an Abruzzese cook asked if he might offer a different pasta to us, the one most nostalgic for him. What he presented was, indeed, pasta all’ Amatriciana, simply made without tomatoes. In dialect, its name contracts into gricia.
Recipe information
Yield
serves 4
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Place the pasta cooking pot filled with abundant water over a lively flame while you prepare the sauce.
Step 2
In a sauté pan over a medium flame, heat the salt pork, permitting it to color and crisp and give up its perfumed fat. With a slotted spoon, remove the crisped salt pork and leave it to rest on absorbent paper towels.
Step 3
In the remaining fat, sauté the onion until translucent, taking care not to let it color, and add the crushed chile, stirring it about with the onion. Remove the pan from the flame.
Step 4
The water should be boiling and ready to receive the pasta now. Add the sea salt to the boiling water with the pasta, cook it to al dente, and drain. Reserve 1/2 cup or so of its cooking water. The pasta should still be somewhat wet. Place it in a warmed, shallow bowl.
Step 5
Pour the onion over the pasta along with 1 cup of the pecorino and several tablespoons of the pasta cooking water. Grind pepper very generously over all and toss the pasta, coating each strand. Strew the pasta with the crisped salt pork and grind over more pepper.
Step 6
Present the pasta, passing the remaining pecorino and the pepper grinder.
