Pappardelle with Tomato and Pancetta

I read the book Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, by Bill Buford, recently. Buford is a writer who began working in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo in New York City, and ended up staying for a couple of years while going on some other culinary adventures in Italy. I really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it.

The main effect the book had on me was to create an intense craving for pasta — real pasta, with real sauce, not some oversalted red concoction out of a jar. Buford spends several pages talking about his experiences working the pasta station on the line at Babbo, and it put me over the top when he went into great detail about how they get the ingredients to come together into a glorious combination to make their awesome sauces. So I looked over Babbo’s web site, where they kindly post lots of recipes, but I ended up with this recipe, out of the Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe book, which itself is full of great dishes that simply capture the elegance and beauty of Italian cooking.

The end result was a decadent, creamy dish with great flavor from the pancetta and tomatoes that, while forcing me to do a few extra sit-ups, definitely satisfied my craving. This pasta recipe makes enough for 4 meals at $2.06 per serving.

Pappardelle with Tomato and Pancetta, adapted from Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe
6 plum tomatoes
5 ounces pancetta slices
2 dried hot chiles
3 1/2 ounces freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 to 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
16 ounces egg pappardelle
salt and pepper

tomatoes

To easily peel the tomatoes, make a slit in the side of each tomato, and place them in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave the tomatoes for 30 seconds or so, and then remove them into cold water. Once the tomatoes are cool enough to touch, peel them and remove the seeds and roughly chop the flesh. Cut the pancetta into 3/4-inch slices and crumble the chiles.

sauce

Melt the butter in a thick-bottomed pan and add the pancetta and chile. Gently cook them until the pancetta begins to colour. Add the tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Let the tomatoes gently cook for 10 minutes, and then add the cream and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Cook the pappardelle in boiling salted water according to the package instructions, or until al dente. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Stir in half of the grated Parmesan while tossing the pasta to make sure each piece is nicely coated in sauce.

pasta