Eggless Pasta Dough & Bucatini All' Amatriciana

This isn't a knee jerk reaction to the great egg recall of Summer 2010. I will say don't eat eggs from giant farms that look like that scene from Napoleon Dynamite where he gets paid for a day's work in change and drinks some deep orange drink with egg yolks stirred in to it. Was it all egg yolks or OJ or something?

It's because I wanted to make Bucatini all' Amatriciana, to which I've referred multiple times in recent posts about Rome. I got a new contraption thanks to a Williams Sonoma Gift Card from the wedding, the Kitchen Aid Pasta Press. Not a roller, but a press that forces the dough through plates to create noodles and shapes difficult to do by hand. Among the forms that can be created with it are one of my faves, Rigatoni, and one of the more difficult ones to find in stores, Bucatini.

Kitchen Aid only lists recipes for dough with eggs in them but I know traditionally rigatoni, macaroni and bucatini were semolina flour and water pastas, so I couldn't bring myself to use an egg dough. I had a feeling I might regret my decision, that the machine would reject it, but I am a stickler for tradition in these matters. I know we live in an era of abundance, but if the originators of the recipe made it with flour and water because they had to, then I'm going to follow suit.

The slight problem with making eggless semolina dough is in bringing it together by hand. The semolina makes for a coarse, tough dough, which is why I cut it 50% with unbleached all purpose or 00 flour. Dried pasta you buy in stores is comprised solely of semolina, which is really difficult to work by hand or even a non-commercial mixer.

I've been to the DeCecco factory in Fara San Martino (Abruzzo) and seen their production, which requires massive presses and kneading machines that take the semola and water mixture and force it into familiar shapes. The durum wheat semolina and water look too dry to come together, but with thousand of pounds of force they churn out a multitude of shapes and sizes. With just my two guns at home to help me I can't quite muster that kind of force, so I compromise slightly with the bit of white flour.

It helps considerably with any pasta dough to let it rest periodically during the kneading process. A three to five minute break will do wonders in terms of relaxing the dough and allowing it to become pliable again. Do it as much as you need to to save your triceps and transform the dough into a smooth ball.

If you don't have the attachment you can improvise as so many contadine did for generations.

Wooden skewers, stalks of wheat (grab some from the backyard) or the metal ribs used to provide rigidity to an umbrella can be used.

Take a bit of dough, roll it into a long dowel and cut off tootsie roll portions. Then take the instrument of choice, press it into the dough and begin rolling it back and forth.

This will flatten and force the dough outward, while also keeping it hollow. Time consuming, yes, but it can be done! I've made a Calabrian pasta called Scilatelle in just this way with, yes, wheat stalks.
As for the sauce, hailing from the little town of Amatrice, now in Abruzzo, it's tomato based but spiked with guanciale and usually some hot pepper. That's really it.

Garlic was probably always acceptable, but onions and herbs and anything else are seen as bastardizations in Rome, where the dish has been adopted as a local favorite (kind of strange because Amatrice is about 70 miles away). Top it off with salty aged pecorino and it's an easy to understand classic.

There's no reason why simple tomato sauces have to be bubbling gently for hours over a low flame. Sure, if you're braising braciole in it for Sunday sauce or something it needs time, but otherwise the tomatoes can break down and cook in as little as twenty minutes. This sauce is a perfect example of that. The guanciale adds a depth of flavor quickly with its porky intensity. It tends to be more intense than pancetta, coming from the cheek. But it's also difficult for me to get at stores, which is why I use American bacon. I want the porcine component to bring something more than pancetta can, so I like the smoky forwardness of the American style, in slab form. It's even more distinct than guanciale would be, but I think it works well.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Pasta dough:

2 cups semolina flour

2 cups 00 or all purpose flour
1 cup water

Amatriciana Sauce:
3 32 oz. cans San Marzano Tomatoes
1/2 lb. smoked or unsmoked slab bacon, medium diced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 chili pepper, finely diced or 1 teaspoon pepperoncino
Chunk of aged pecorino romano for grating
Salt and pepper to taste

To make the pasta dough mix the flours in a bowl, then add the water and stir to combine with a wooden spoon. When the water has been incorporated and the spoon isn't really do anything anymore use your fingers and knuckles to work the mass into a loose dough.

It should still be quite dry at this point and a decent amount of flour left on the bottom of the bowl. Turn it out onto a work surface and begin kneading, with short rests in between as needed.

Once you've achieved a nice smooth ball wrap it in plastic and let it rest uninterrupted for 30 minutes before making the desired shape.

Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Salt it abundantly.

In a heavy bottom pan or frying pan heat the olive oil over medium low heat. Add the bacon and let it cook slowly so it renders much of its fat without browning too much. When the bottom of the pan is coated with the liquefied bacon fat and most of it is rendered, add the pepper or pepper flakes and let cook for a minute or two.

Add the tomatoes and partially crush them. Bring the sauce to low boil and let it cook, stirring occasionally for twenty minutes or so for the flavors to meld. Season to taste with salt and pepper and keep it on a minimal simmer. This can be made a day in advance to improve flavor.

Cook the pasta in the boiling water, basically until it floats, about 3-5 minutes. Drain, and either toss into the frying pan and stir to combine, or drain to a serving bowl and mix with some olive oil, then top with sauce when serving.

Garnish with pecorino romano and enjoy.