Bucatini all’Amatriciana with Chinese Sausage

This Bucatini all’Amatriciana is a marriage between 2 cultures. – Italian and Chinese. Made with Chinese sausage and flavored with fish sauce, this dish packs a serious flavor punch. It also takes less than 30 minutes to cook, making it the weeknight dinner you’ll want on the regular. Included in this blog post are my favorite tips and tricks on how to make restaurant quality pasta dishes at home.

The thing I love doing most is creating a a dish that is a marriage between 2 cultures, especially if that dish involves pasta. I’ve done this a few times before like in my tom yum pasta and my Chinese sausage carbonara, and found that pasta is a great canvas to experiment with different flavors. In this recipe, I decided to experiment a bit with bucatini all’amatriciana, a classic Italian pasta. I substituted the guanciale with Chinese sausage and added a dash of fish sauce to give the flavor an extra oomph. The end result is a yummy weeknight dish I have been making on the regular. It is just that good!

What is Buccatini all’Amatriciana?

As mentioned above, Buccatini all’Amatriciana is a classic Italian pasta dish that originates from Amatrice, a region in Italy. It is made with a tomato-based sauce, guanciale, and pecorino romano. The version I love most is made with buccatini pasta which is a thicker pasta with a small hole in the middle, which allows the sauce to evenly coat the entire pasta. You can make this dish with any pasta though.

Ingredients, Substitutions & Adjustments

• Bucatini – I chose to use bucatini because I thought this would be the pasta that pairs the best with the sauce, but you can use any kind of pasta you want. Good substities are fettucine and spaghetti. I also chose to specify 400 grams of pasta which is ~1 pound because in my experience, 100 grams is the perfect amount per person. It’s not too much, not too little.
• Chinese sausage (lap cheong) – This salty, sweet Cantonese sausage is my substitute for guanciale and provides so much flavor to the sauce. They’re also addicting to eat.
• Whole tomatoes – Use high quality tomatoes for the best flavor. I like to use whole San Marzano tomatoes because they have the best flavor. Use any kind of canned whole tomatoes you can find.
• Dry white wine – Adds flavor to the dish. You can make this dish without the white wine, but I wouldn’t recommend it because it tastes a lot better with it.
• Red pepper flakes – Gives this dish a bit of a kick. I personally think it could be spicier, but I didn’t want to melt people’s tastebuds. Add as much or as little as you want.
• Fish sauce – Adds flavor to the dish. An optional ingredient.
• Salt – Brings out the flavor of the other ingredients.
• Pecorino romano cheese – Adds saltiness to the sauce and makes the pasta sauce thick. You can use parmesan cheese, but it’ll taste a little different.

How to make Bucatini all’Amatriciana with Chinese Sausage

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While the water is boiling, cut 1 cup of Chinese sausage into small cubes. Set aside. Heat a pan over medium high heat. Saute Chinese sausage until seared on all sides. Add 1/2 cup of white wine and reduce liquid until you can’t smell the alcohol anymore (~1 minute). Follow the wine with 28 oz of canned tomatoes. Break them apart with a spoon. Add 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, 1 tsp of fish sauce, and 1/2 tsp salt. Stir and simmer for 3-5 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, cook 400 grams of bucatini for 3-5 minutes until al dente. Reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Once cooked through, add the bucatini to the sauce with the reserved pasta water. Sprinkle pecorino cheese over the top and toss together. Optional: Garnish with thinly sliced basil. Highly recommend!

Tips on how to make the perfect pasta dish

These are some tips and tricks that I’ve found over the years have improved the way my pasta tastes.

Heavily salt the water used to cook pasta

Pasta inherently doesn’t have that much flavor, so you need salt to bring out what little flavor it does have. It also helps your dish not taste so flat. This is the #1 tip I’ve found that makes homemade pasta taste more like restaurant pasta.

Reserve pasta water for the sauce

This is the water the pasta is cooked in. Reserving some of the water and adding it to the sauce acts as a thickening agent since the water has some of the starch leftover from the cooked pasta. Additionally, this makes your pasta look shinier.

Cook pasta until al dente

Every pasta recipe says this but what does it actually mean right? It means cooking your pasta to a point where it’s just cooked and has a bit of bite to it still. The reason this is important (in my opinion) is you still want the pasta to have room to absorb some of your sauce. This helps improve the flavor of the overall dish.

Don’t wash the noodles after cooking

Unlike cooking rice noodles like vermicelli, you DO NOT want to wash your pasta. That washes off all the flavor your pasta has.

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