Arrabbiata is king
- Thread starter tokie
- Start date
surfsatwerk
Lifer
- Mar 6, 2008
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satyajitmenon
Golden Member
- Apr 3, 2008
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Everytime I hear "Arrabbiata", the first thing that comes to mind is this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw
Bertolli sauces are curious...they are actually quite good. When I was a kid, my parents and grandma always made our own sauce once a year and then we canned it in mason jars. I grew up on home made sauce (family is Italian). one day I'm at my grandma's house and she serves me some pasta with tomato sauce she made. I thought the sauce was different than her usual recipe but still quite good. Turns out I unknowingly participated in her experiment. She revealed that she tried this new pasta sauce and it came from a jar! We always thought jarred sauce from a supermarket shelf was inferior, but this was when we were kids, we only had disgusting prego and ragu brands and then the even worse generic brand "spaghetti sauce" that tasted like ketchup with some oregano. I was geniunely surprised that supermarket sauce could taste good.
So, I now usually keep a jar or two of bertolli around for a quick sauce when I dont feel like making it from scratch. I've never tried the arrabbiata but the basil tomato is pretty good.
So, I now usually keep a jar or two of bertolli around for a quick sauce when I dont feel like making it from scratch. I've never tried the arrabbiata but the basil tomato is pretty good.
Don Vito Corleone
Elite
- Feb 10, 2000
- 30,029
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jman19
Lifer
- Nov 3, 2000
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NikolaeVarius
Lifer
- Oct 25, 2006
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And it takes 1% of the time to use sauce that achieve 95% of the flavor.
Its not about laziness, its about a simple cost benefit analysis.
I prefer mole -- as long as it isn't the standard chocolate bullshit. Though genuine oaxacan mole with chocolate is pretty decent.
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 111,860
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I love puttanesca, but arrabiatta is my favorite.
but come on guys...jars of sauce? it's so cheap and easy to make.
i use pancetta with my arrabiatta.
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
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sauces are best made in batches. Spend a small part of sunday morning cooking up a big vat of that shit and freeze them down in containers that can easily last for a month or more.
even the laziest of lazies can handle that.
Sundays have mornings? Wow. I always assumed the day started around 1pm. Learn something new every day!
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 111,860
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I'm just a lazy person, that's all it comes down to on my end. Along with living in an apartment with a small freezer.
My dad though, he'll do gallons of sauce at a time and then properly can it in mason jars. He loves to cook. I've been spoiled by a childhood of homemade food.
I actually had Ragu for the first time in college, once, when I went to the store and was just buying 1 of everything to try them out. Never making that mistake again, it was pretty much ketchup with spices and truly awful.
DigDog
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2011
- 14,640
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actually... no.
the king .. ok let's start again.
Back home, we eat arrabbiata *way* too often; it kinda gets boring.
Generally the "other" sauce is carbonara, but, as it takes more stuff to make, and its more complicated, we tend to eat less of the other and more of the first.
But truly, the king of sauces, and now officially D.O.P (i.e, they put the recipe down, and only that one can carry its name), is the Amatriciana.
It's very.. ermm.. somewhat similar to the arrabbiata, needs to be made with a specific kind of pork meat, and uses a specific cheese. It's spicy as well, using the same chilies as arrabbiata does.
Ofc it's quite meaty and filling, so it's only eaten in special occasions; pasta itself is more of a lunchtime affair, and generally it's back to work afterwards, so a sauce of tomatoes floating in bacon grease and chili isn't really a "light meal", but if you want to know how, it's worth a try.
1. grab a chunk of Guanciale meat from your friendly local mammamia (Italian food shop); you're looking for this stuff here:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qe4KleSN3Go/TH074gNd9fI/AAAAAAAABxs/C_4grdJ_i-I/s1600/IMG_9800.jpg
2. dice it in nice, hearthy bits. fry slowly with little olive oil until it crisps. remove and save, keeping the fat(by which i mean both the bacon grease and the olive oil).
3. fry some serrano chilies, the small ones, in the fat. What chilies you put in will strongly influence the taste of the sauce, so be careful here, and also, don't overdo it. Too much chili will kill the taste of meat. We use these here:
http://www.madamaoliva.it/prodotti.php?id_prodotto=118
4. add tomatoes, whether fresh or canned, but try to not add too many. keep the sauce more made of fat than of tomatoes. Fry until the first signs of caramelisation occur; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
5. cook the pasta, drain, put the pasta back in the pot; add some fresh olive oil, and throw in some grated Pecorino cheese.
6. once the pasta is back in the pot with the olive oil and the cheese, stir vigorously. As soon as the cheese appears to be melting, *immediately* pour in the sauce and the reserved fried Guanciale bits; stir a bit more to coat, and serve, with a small lump of grated Pecorino on top.
traditionally, we couple this sauce with Bucatini pasta, but whatever it is you chose, please stick to one of the classic main brands - Barilla, De Cecco, Buitioni, or Voiello. There might be better ones out there, but you're unlikely to find them.
Also, stick to the cooking instructions.
NOTES
n1. this sauce uses no salt. the cheese is salty and the pasta should be boiled in well salted water too, so that's all the salt that you need.
n2. olive oil changes flavor with heat quite quickly; the addition of fresh oil in the last stage will give it a more rounded taste.
n3. when you fry the guanciale(use very little oil please), it should immediately start sweating, and should shrink as it loses the fat; if it plumps up, swells, or otherwise doesn't "fry-down", it's shit, you got scammed, give it to the dog. This is due to the usage of a "quick-cure" system which makes for a tasteless imitation product. Also, the more firm the skin on the sdes, the better the Guanciale.
n4. no onion, no garlic, no nada. what's written here, and nothing else.
n5. try to make the pasta a bit al'dente; it always pays off.
the king .. ok let's start again.
Back home, we eat arrabbiata *way* too often; it kinda gets boring.
Generally the "other" sauce is carbonara, but, as it takes more stuff to make, and its more complicated, we tend to eat less of the other and more of the first.
But truly, the king of sauces, and now officially D.O.P (i.e, they put the recipe down, and only that one can carry its name), is the Amatriciana.
It's very.. ermm.. somewhat similar to the arrabbiata, needs to be made with a specific kind of pork meat, and uses a specific cheese. It's spicy as well, using the same chilies as arrabbiata does.
Ofc it's quite meaty and filling, so it's only eaten in special occasions; pasta itself is more of a lunchtime affair, and generally it's back to work afterwards, so a sauce of tomatoes floating in bacon grease and chili isn't really a "light meal", but if you want to know how, it's worth a try.
1. grab a chunk of Guanciale meat from your friendly local mammamia (Italian food shop); you're looking for this stuff here:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qe4KleSN3Go/TH074gNd9fI/AAAAAAAABxs/C_4grdJ_i-I/s1600/IMG_9800.jpg
2. dice it in nice, hearthy bits. fry slowly with little olive oil until it crisps. remove and save, keeping the fat(by which i mean both the bacon grease and the olive oil).
3. fry some serrano chilies, the small ones, in the fat. What chilies you put in will strongly influence the taste of the sauce, so be careful here, and also, don't overdo it. Too much chili will kill the taste of meat. We use these here:
http://www.madamaoliva.it/prodotti.php?id_prodotto=118
4. add tomatoes, whether fresh or canned, but try to not add too many. keep the sauce more made of fat than of tomatoes. Fry until the first signs of caramelisation occur; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
5. cook the pasta, drain, put the pasta back in the pot; add some fresh olive oil, and throw in some grated Pecorino cheese.
now, back in Rome, we'd go berserk if you used just *any'ol* kind of pecorino, but overseas, you gotta do with what you've got.
But, if you're a foodie, and are prepared to go the extra mile, what you want is a Pecorino, but not Pecorino Romano. You want something more milky in taste (closer to a spicy Caciotta), yet it needs to be old enough so that it will have "the tear", or simply the oily look of a cheese whose serum is beginning to slowly come out as the mass is hardening; this gives it a shiny look, as if oily stuff is seeping out (slightly, not massively), and we call these "droplets" tears. Asa rule of thumb, oncve sliced, smooth surface = rubbish, grainy surface = yumm yumm.
But, if you're a foodie, and are prepared to go the extra mile, what you want is a Pecorino, but not Pecorino Romano. You want something more milky in taste (closer to a spicy Caciotta), yet it needs to be old enough so that it will have "the tear", or simply the oily look of a cheese whose serum is beginning to slowly come out as the mass is hardening; this gives it a shiny look, as if oily stuff is seeping out (slightly, not massively), and we call these "droplets" tears. Asa rule of thumb, oncve sliced, smooth surface = rubbish, grainy surface = yumm yumm.
6. once the pasta is back in the pot with the olive oil and the cheese, stir vigorously. As soon as the cheese appears to be melting, *immediately* pour in the sauce and the reserved fried Guanciale bits; stir a bit more to coat, and serve, with a small lump of grated Pecorino on top.
traditionally, we couple this sauce with Bucatini pasta, but whatever it is you chose, please stick to one of the classic main brands - Barilla, De Cecco, Buitioni, or Voiello. There might be better ones out there, but you're unlikely to find them.
Also, stick to the cooking instructions.
NOTES
n1. this sauce uses no salt. the cheese is salty and the pasta should be boiled in well salted water too, so that's all the salt that you need.
n2. olive oil changes flavor with heat quite quickly; the addition of fresh oil in the last stage will give it a more rounded taste.
n3. when you fry the guanciale(use very little oil please), it should immediately start sweating, and should shrink as it loses the fat; if it plumps up, swells, or otherwise doesn't "fry-down", it's shit, you got scammed, give it to the dog. This is due to the usage of a "quick-cure" system which makes for a tasteless imitation product. Also, the more firm the skin on the sdes, the better the Guanciale.
n4. no onion, no garlic, no nada. what's written here, and nothing else.
n5. try to make the pasta a bit al'dente; it always pays off.
Last edited:
PricklyPete
Lifer
- Sep 17, 2002
- 14,582
- 162
- 106
For sauce out of a jar, I totally agree. My favorite brand at the moment is Rao's:
http://www.raos.com/AR24-case.aspx#.UZF_QSt37Fw
http://www.raos.com/AR24-case.aspx#.UZF_QSt37Fw
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