San Lorenzo Linguine and Amatricana Sauce

San Lorenzo's hamper couldn't have arrived at a better time. Deep into January and with funds tighter than a rope that circus performers walk along, trying not to fall 100 feet to their death, I could have kissed the nice people at San Lorenzo for their humanitarian food parcel.



Feeling tired and peckish the thought of some pasta with a bold red Italian sauce filled me with glee. And then I remembered that I had the remains of Mum's roast ham in the fridge too that has found itself in all my cooking since she handed it over to me. A perfect way to pad out the Amatricana sauce which I have now found out is made from pig cheek! No wonder it tasted so good and that they wrote the ingredients in Italian!



I simply cooked the linguine as per the instructions with a pinch of salt in my boiling water and simmered the sauce in a pan before adding my cut up roast ham.



I used my new pasta claw to transfer the al dente pasta into the sauce and turned it over a few times before seasoning with pepper - it was already nicely salty from all the pig! A few parsley leaves gave the dish an Italian flag colouration and made me the happiest man in the world for the next 20 minutes!

Delicious. Doesn't even compare to normal supermarket pasta / pasta sauces. The pasta was tasty in its own right with a robust texture and slippery finish. Not sticky. Not flabby. And the sauce was really quite special too. Deep, rich and very moreish.



Thank you San Lorenzo. I'm looking forward to trying out the rest of my goodies in due course. I recommend that if you like to cook proper Italian food at home and you haven't got a good Italian deli near you then you visit San Lorenzo's website instead. Photo to come once I get it off my phone.