Saltimbocca
This savoury veal dish is so good they call it "jumps-in-the-mouth". A veal escalope is layered with sage leaves and prosciutto then sautèed in white wine.
Bucatini all'amatriciana
Named after Amatrice, the northern Lazio town high in the Abruzzi mountains where it originated. The sauce consists of tomatoes mixed with Italian bacon - guanciale (pork check) or Pancetta (pork belly) - laced with chilli papper and and liberally dusted with grated Pecorino romano cheese. The classic pasta accompaniment are bucatini (thick, hollow speghetti). The original amatriciana binaca version (before tomatoes, a New world food, entared Italian cuisine) adds parsley and butter.
Carciofi alla romana
Tender Italian artichokes, often laced with garlic and mint, are braised in a mixtur of olive oil and water.
Abbacchio scottaditto
Roasted Roman spring lamd, so succulent the name claims you'll "burn your fingers" in your haste to eat it. When abbacchio (lamb) is unavailable, once the spring slaughter is over, they switch to less tender agnello (young mutton).
Spaghetti alla cabonara
The piping hot pasta is immediately mixed with a raw egg, grated Parmesan and black pepper so that the eggy mixtur cooks on to the strands of spaghetti themselves. It is then tossed with pieces of pancetta (bacon). There's a local legend that the recipe was born out of US army ration after World War II (powderd bacon and eggs mix), but no one seems to have proven or discarded the theory.
Carciofi alla giudia
Artichokes, first flattened then fried. This Typical Roman Jewish dish is often accompanied by fried courgette (zucchini)
flowers stuffed with muzzarella cheese and anchovies.
Pajata
It may sound revolting but it's actually delicious: suckling calf intestines boiled with its mother's milk still clotted inside. Usually the intestines are chopped.
Coda alla baccinara
Oxtail braised in celery and tomato broth. Like pajata, this is a product of trying to make something out of the quinto quarto (the unusable "fifth fourth" of the day's butchering), which was part of the take-home pay of 19th-century slaughterhouse workers. Checchino dal 1887, the restaurant that came up with this delicacy, is one of Rome's finest.
Gnocchi alla romana
These tiny potato-and -flour dumplings, dense
Cacio e Pepe
Local Businessmen regularly take their lunchtime discussions to this 1906 beer hall sponsored by Italy's biggest brewery. The buffet snackes and scrumptious main dishes cross Roman and Germanic influences, and the art deco murals feature cherubs playing sports and promising "He who drinks beer lives to 100".
| |