Amatriciana & Boulevardier
Welcome to Volume I of Dinner & Drinks (w your host, me, of course)! Cooking is something that I’ve loved for a very long time, and I tend to cook very loosely, intuitively, and definitely rustically, because it’s just another tool that I use to create freely, ya know?
This is a really, really loose recipe off of a traditional Amatriciana pasta, which is one of my favorites, but using some of the ingredients I have an abundance of at home (like swapping out guanciale for pork belly, and San Marzano tomatoes for sun gold tomatoes). I think the fattiness, richness, and spice that you get from this pasta dish really pairs soooo well with a riffed Boulevardier (another toxic trait of mine is swapping out Campari for Aperol, which is slightly less bitter and has a touch more sweetness to it).
BOULEVARDIER —
• 1 oz Aperol
• 1 oz sweet vermouth (Lo-Fi Aperitifs)
• 1 oz bourbon (Elijah Craig Small Batch)
• garnish: orange twist
Add ingredients to a cocktail mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain over a fresh ice cube in a rocks glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
SUN GOLD AMATRICIANA —
250g pork belly
300g sun gold tomatoes
15g Calabrian chili paste
salt & black pep to taste
10g sugar
150g dry white wine
garnish: pecorino romano, black pepper, basil sprig
300g pasta of choice (I’m using casarecce)
Cut the pork into ½ inch pieces and add it to a cold pan. Bring to medium heat and crisp it up until your level of crispiness is desired. Remove from pan and set aside. Let the pan cool down a minute and bring it to med-low heat.
To the same pan, add chili paste and let it cook for about a minute. Be mindful as it will spit and splatter! That’s why I like to make sure my pan has cooled down a fair bit before adding the Calabrian chili paste to avoid this mess.
Add tomatoes and coat them in the residual fat/chili paste, season, and let them pop and reduce. You can squish them with the back of your spoon if you want to speed up the process. This is the time you can throw in your pasta and cook it according to the directions. To your tomatoes, add the white wine and bring to med-high heat, allowing it to reduce a bit. I like to hit mine with the immersion blender to get some of the chunks out, but still keeping some for texture. Toss the cooked pasta & pork belly in the sauce and plate it up with some grated pecorino, black pep, and a basil sprig.