Amatriciana with Braised Pork Shoulder
Sure, it looks kinda basic, but there’s more to it than looks
Time: 3 Hours 10 minutes
Ingredient Availability: 4/5
Difficulty: 1/5
The Italian American Cookbook has very good pasta sauces. As I’ve worked my way though these sauces, I’ve really been impressed by how much flavor can come from relatively common ingredients. Now, I never thought of adding pork shoulder to a pasta sauce, so this recipe is especially interesting. Sure, many meatballs include pork, but how does a sauce where all the meat is pork turn out?
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
The only ingredient that I was unable to find was guanciale. I used pancetta to replace it. All of the other ingredients are very simple and common, so I doubt you’ll have any issue finding everything else. If you can’t find pancetta, I think bacon is another good substitute.
Tools:
Large Pot
Sharp Knife
Food processor
Cooking Review:
Prep: 26 minutes
The prep for this recipe included chopping one and a half red onions, measuring out the seasonings and stock, and dicing the pork shoulder into cubes.
Processing Pancetta: 2 minutes
I added the pancetta, which was pre diced, to the food processor and processed it until it formed a ball.
Rubbing and searing pork: 18 minutes
I added some salt and pepper to the diced pork shoulder and rubbed it all over. I heated the oil over medium high heat and added the pork in two batches, searing all sides. Each batch took about 4-6 minutes to get good color.
Cook Pancetta and onions: 11 minutes
I reduced the heat and added the pancetta to cook for 3 minutes, mixing occasionally. I added the red pepper flakes, and onions, next. While that was cooking down and becoming translucent, I crushed the tomatoes in a bowl by hand.
Simmer:1 hour 6 minutes
I added the chicken stock and tomatoes to the pot along with the seared pork shoulder. It took about 6 minutes to come to a simmer over a higher heat on the stove. I reduced the heat back to low and covered the sauce to simmer for an hour, stirring every 10 minutes. While the sauce was simmering, I juiced a lemon and shredded the pecorino romano.
Simmer uncovered: 54 minutes
Although the recipe says the sauce should thicken in about 30 minutes, it took almost double that for mine to reduce enough to my eye. I stirred it occasionally to prevent burning. During this time, I also cooked my pasta.
Finishing: 5 minutes
Once the sauce had thickened, I added the sugar and seasoned it will a little salt to taste. I added the cooked pasta to the sauce and stirred in some lemon juice, pecorino Romano, and butter.
Analysis:
Once again, Italian American has Provided me with a very flavorful pasta sauce. The pork became extremely tender, almost melting in my mouth while providing a nice porky flavor. The red onions pretty much disappeared in the sauce, but their flavor is pretty apparent, as the sauce has a great savoriness and balanced sweetness. Everything about this sauce is well balanced. The choice of pasta is very good, as the sauce is hearty and chunky, the rigatoni easily holds up to the sauce. The only downside is that I wasn’t able to get a hold of some guanciale. This recipe is a 9/10 and I wonder what it would be like if the pancetta was replaced with guanciale.
