Saturday, March 19, 2011

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Pancetta!

Hey everyone! Today I'm participating in Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet's Great Cooking Magazine Challenge with a recipe from the Martha Stewart Living April 2010 issue. I'm also joining Masterpiece Monday, Bacon Monday and Foodie Friday.
Spicy Tomato Sauce with Pancetta
This is a simple six ingredient recipe with the only non-pantry item being the pancetta. 
Apparently, we're a bunch of bumpkins here North of Philly and our tastes are not sophisticated enough for local supermarkets to carry pancetta... so I had to sub bacon, see notes below.
This is very good, and I highly recommend it.
Hope you love it if you try it!

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Pancetta
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces pancetta or guanciale, sliced 1/8" thick and cut into 1/4" wide strips
1 small red onion (I used yellow)
1/2 tsp crushed red-pepper flakes
1 can (28 ounces) peeled plum tomatoes with juice, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
  1. Heat oil in heavy medium pan over medium heat. Cook pancetta, stirring often, until golden and fat has rendered, about 8 minutes.
  2. Add onion and red pepper flakes, and cook stirring occasionally until tender, about 10-12 minutes.
  3. Stir in the chopped tomatoes with juice and add salt. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally until sauce is thick, about 25 minutes. 
  4. Serve with pasta and garnish with Pecorino Romano cheese. Your Momma would be happy if you served a salad too:@)
  5. Can be frozen for 1 month.
Notes:
  • They say you can sub bacon if you boil it for 2 minutes to remove some of the smoky flavor, that 's what I did.
  • I did drain all but about a tsp or two of the fat once the bacon had cooked down.
  • I cut the tomatoes in half then took a hand held potato masher to them.
  • Acknowledging that everyone's tolerance for heat is different, would I personally call this "spicy" as in hot, no. It does leave a warmth after you eat it though. 
  • I had to simmer it quite a bit longer than 25 minutes for it to reduce enough.
  • This would be great as a Zoodles-N-Noodles dish.
The hardest part of this recipe was not being able to eat it until I took the pics... 
Oh the things I do for you guys-enjoy:@)

22 comments:

  1. This is a wondeful Italian Pasta.....BRAVA!!!! Hugs, Flavia

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  2. Good Morning Sweetie...
    Oh my gosh, does this ever sound wonderful. I can't wait to give it a try. It isn't even 11am here and I am now hungry for pasta. Yummy.

    Thanks for sharing the wonderful recipe. I love trying new things. The bacon substitute sounds wonderful as well.

    Many hugs sweetie and much love, Sherry

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  3. That looks really good and fast. Definitely will try with the bacon too. Bacon is always good.

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  4. It is hit or miss here with pancetta. This pasta looks very tasty.

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  5. I love pancetta too but the yokels here are not keen to it either. This sounds wonderful! I am going to make this for the kids this week. Dad is going out of town and they love spaghetti. He, unfortunately, has boycotted tomatoes and anything with them in it. Men are no fun!

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  6. Hey Maggie! It is a little hot, hope the Bitty One likes that, or you might want to cut back some on the crushed peppers:@)

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  7. Looks fantastic..I don't even know what pancetta IS. But, I DO know that we love anything with bacon but can't even begin to imagine boiling it. hmmmm...gotta try it, tho.

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  8. I'm a pasta fan and this looks great. Will be on the lookout for pancetta.

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  9. I have substituted prosciutto and bacon and it all works great. I love the smokey flavor that little bit gives. I agree, I would have had a hard time waiting too!

    Been catching up! Love your St. Patrick's Table. Such fun and bright greens. Earl looks great as always sporting his fabulous blingy hat! Hope you had a wonderful St. Patrick's DAy. I was out of town and all 4 of us forgot to wear green (luckily no pinches!)

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  10. A spicey sauce is my favorite! I almost don't like it any other way. I'll have to try this with the pancetta. Looks good!

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  11. It looks delicious, Lynn. I am going to try this!

    Xo,
    Jane

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  12. Yum! You want to come cook for us?
    Happy Weekend ~ sarah

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  13. Oh, don't we all love easy recipes that are GOOD?! It looks delicious. I could have a plate full right now even though it's 10:00 pm! :)
    Donna

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  14. Yum! My husband would love this. He loves red pepper flakes on all things Italian.

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  15. Hello Lynn,
    sure I will try that. New recipes are everytime welcome.
    Greetings, Johanna

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  16. Looks so good, I love spicy! and the bacon has to put that sauce over the top! Now you have given me a craving and I didn't even have breakfast yet!

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  17. I'm your newest follower! Love what you have going on over here! I'd love to feature you as guest chef sometime! Stop onver and link up this post in my Bacon Monday! It sure looks tasty! I just started Bacon Monday last week! Hope you join in!

    Susie

    http://cafescrapper-scrapsoflife.blogspot.com/2011/03/bacon-mondays-fo-sizzle-recipe-giveaway.html

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  18. I bet that has a wonderful fresh taste with a good smoky kick from the bacon. I think bacon is a perfect sub in most recipes calling for pancetta. I do it all the time :-) So glad you joined me for this installment of the challenge. I think I will try to do it monthly. I hate that I missed your first Celebrity cook along. Is it still too late to do Ina? I will definitely be joining in for the Pioneer Woman event.

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  19. Great recipe ... I would probably prefer bacon ... I went back and looked at your owl cloche post from the Fall Cloche Party ... had missed it before. Love that, too! My regards to the pig kids!

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  20. Really, no pancetta? How about proscuitto?

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  21. Pancetta is plentiful here, and that does sound good!

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Thank you for stopping by-enjoy your day!