© Roberta Paolucci
In her new book Winter in Tuscany, Amber Guinness honours the region’s rich culinary and cultural traditions with a quanto basta approach – the intuitive, Italian method of ‘just enough’. Bringing the heart of Tuscany’s cosy autumnal and wintry flavours to your kitchen, and filled with an array of hyper-local, traditional recipes for the home cook, Winter in Tuscany is an invitation to slow down and appreciate the beauty in small moments and big flavours.
In this extract from the book, Amber shares her hearty recipe for Spaghetti all’ubriaco, or Drunkard’s Spaghetti, a recipe that uses wine to make a delicious pasta sauce.
© Valentina Solfrini
A Note from Amber
Chianti is one of Italy’s most emblematic wines, produced in the hills between Florence and Siena and protected by the symbol of the black cockerel that endorses every bottle of Chianti Classico. Winemaking is a huge part of Tuscan rural life, and having had access to lots of scarti (leftover wine), the wives of vineyard employees devised this local traditional dish, also known as pasta alla Chiantigiana. What is particularly wonderful about this dish is that it works well with wine that has been sitting around for a few days and you’re desperate to get rid of. That wine that is no longer any good for drinking can be turned into a tasty meal by cooking it down with onions and pancetta and tossing it with pasta. Adding wine to the pasta cooking water also imparts some of its colour to the spaghetti. The recipe also works well with less wine if you only have half a bottle knocking around; the taste will just be more subtle.
© Roberta Paolucci
Spaghetti all’ubriacona or Drunkard’s spaghetti
SERVES 4
PREPARATION: 5 minutes
COOKING: 15 minutes
- 1 white onion, finely chopped
- 100 g (3 1/2 oz) unsmoked ready-diced pancetta, chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra to serve
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 bottle of chianti or any full-bodied red wine
- 400 g (14 oz) spaghetti
- Grated parmesan, to serve
- Put the onion, pancetta and olive oil in a wide frying pan, large enough to hold all the spaghetti later. Cook on a gentle sizzle over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the onion becomes translucent and the pancetta opaque.
- Add a generous pinch of salt, black pepper and 2 glasses of red wine and leave to gently bubble over a medium heat.
- Bring a large saucepan of well-salted water to a rolling boil. Add a fistful of salt and 2–3 glasses of red wine to the water. (If you happen to have another glass of wine left, add it to the pan of pasta sauce.)
- Once the water has come back to a rolling boil, add the spaghetti. Once it has fully wilted down into the water, stir the spaghetti around so that the strands don’t stick together. Halfway through the pasta cooking time (check the packet instructions), add a whole ladleful of the wine-stained pasta water to the sauce and turn up the heat – you want to keep the sauce quite liquid to be able to toss the spaghetti through it.
- Once the spaghetti is al dente, use tongs to transfer it to the frying pan and toss with the sauce, adding a little more of the reserved pasta cooking water if needed.
- Serve immediately, sprinkled with parmesan and lots of black pepper.
Words by Amber Guinness
Winter in Tuscany publishes in the UK on 25 September, and in the US on 14 October.
