Pinci con carciofi e guanciale
Our first 48 hours in Italy: dinner at a pizzeria, shopping for winter vegetables, and pasta inspired by the Roman artichoke.
It was nearly 8:30 pm when Stefano and I arrived in Rome on Friday evening. We’re back in Italy to check in on the renovation of our house in Montalcino and, since we fly in and out of Rome, a quick hello to our son, Luca, and Stefano’s family.
Tired and hungry, we met Luca for pizzas at Frezza - Cucina de Coccio, a restaurant owned by Italian actor and director Claudio Amendola that features traditional Roman cuisine.
Dinner at a Roman Pizzeria
We ordered traditional antipasti of carciofi alla giudia (fried artichokes), supplì (croquettes made with rice, tomato sauce and mozzarella), and fiorì di zucca (batter-fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy).
Luca had a diavola (spicy salami) pizza, I chose my tried and true fiori di zucca e alici (zucchini blossoms and anchovies), and Stefano ordered his pizza with carciofi e guanciale (artichokes and pork jowel).
After our pizzas, we couldn’t resist sharing a side of puntarelle, a salad made from bitter green chicory shoots sliced into thin strips and tossed with a creamy vinaigrette made with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and anchovies. Puntarelle are in season right now, and since we cannot find them in the States, we take the opportunity to order them anytime we can.
Fortified and jet-lagged, we slept soundly and awoke on Saturday morning to grey skies and drizzle. Honestly, we didn’t mind; Rome is refreshingly quiet on a rainy day in January. With just one day in town before departing for Montalcino, we grabbed our umbrellas and headed out for a walk.
After strolling through Piazza Navona and admiring the fountains, newly restored and beautified just in time for the Vatican’s Jubileo, we worked our way to Campo de’ Fiori to peruse the farmer’s market.
Winter Vegetables at the Farmer’s Market
We have mixed feelings about Campo de’ Fiori. Decades ago, when we lived in Rome, it was a true farmer’s market, the entire piazza filled with fruit, vegetable, and flower stands. In recent years, it’s become overrun by cheesy restaurants that cater to tourists and street vendors selling cheap trinkets and souvenirs. A few true fruit and vegetable vendors remain, and we browsed their aisles admiring the beautiful cabbages, cauliflower, cime di rapa, and other winter vegetables we cannot find at home.
There were some beautiful, albeit pricy, puntarelle already sliced and ready to be dressed. We considered bringing some with us to Montalcino but decided against it because we didn’t think they’d travel well.
But when we came upon some carciofi romaneschi (Roman artichokes) that had already been cleaned, trimmed, and vacuum packed, we were sold. Carciofi romaneschi are not available where we live in the States, and they are in season now. We decided we’d try pasta made with artichokes, guanciale, and pecorino, three quintessential ingredients of the Roman culinary tradition, just like the pizza Stefano had the night before.
We tracked down a piece of guanciale and a wedge of Pecorino Romano, bought some olives from an elderly woman dressed from head to toe in A.S. Roma soccer swag (she even had Roma earrings!), and headed back to stash our goods in our hotel room minibar.
Pinci with artichokes, guanciale and pecorino romano
We arrived in Montalcino just before noon on Sunday. The town is quiet on a Sunday in January, but we managed to buy a packet of pinci, the local pasta, and we headed to our Airbnb to make lunch.
You never know quite what you’ll find in an Airbnb kitchen, and over the years, we’ve become pretty good at making do with whatever pots, pans, and utensils we happen to have.
Stefano took charge, sweating the fat out of the guanciale, sauteeing the tender hearts and stems of the artichoke, cooking the pasta, and finally bringing it all together in the pan with a handful of Pecorino Romano. The result was delicious - a hearty winter pasta we will undoubtedly make again.
Ingredients
4 servings
250 grams of guanciale
4 artichokes
1 lemon
1 pack of long pasta, such as tonnarelli, spaghetti, bucatini, or linguine
100 grams of grated Pecorino Romano
Instructions
Clean the artichokes by removing the tough, outer leaves until you get to the tender part. Look for the soft, yellow coloring at the base of each leaf.
Slice off the top 1/3 of the artichoke.
Open the artichoke and remove the choke - the fuzzy white part inside.
Chop off the longest part of the stem, leaving about 5cm (2 inches) of it. Use a paring knife to clean the remaining step by stripping away its outer layers.
Cut the remaining tender parts of the artichokes into pieces.
Squeeze the juice of one lemon into a bowl of cold water and submerge the chopped artichokes in the lemon water to keep them from turning brown.
Bring a large pot of water on the stove to a rolling boil.
Cut the guanciale into about 1/4 inch or 2 cm strips.
In a large saucepan, slowly fry the guanciale, letting it sweat until crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. When done, remove from heat, remove the guanciale, and set aside. Leave the oil in the saucepan.
Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until it is 2-3 minutes shy of al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, strain the artichokes and place them in the saucepan with the oil from the guanciale.
Sauté the artichokes for about 5 minutes, and then add one ladle of cooking water from the pasta to the saucepan, stirring the sauce together.
When the pasta is 2-3 minutes from al dente, remove it from the boiling water with kitchen tongs or a pasta spider and add it directly to the saucepan with the artichokes. Preserve the pasta cooking water.
Mix the pasta quickly and vigorously over medium heat until it is coated with the sauce.
Add another ladle of the pasta cooking water and continue to stir vigorously.
Add a handful of Pecorino Romano to the mixture and continue to stir quickly until a creamy sauce is formed, adding more cooking water as needed until the pasta is cooked.
When the pasta is ready, transfer it to serving plates and top with guanciale and a generous sprinkling of Pecorino Romano.
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Such an excellent way to use the artichoke! 10 out of 10!
Gorgeous dish! I know it by the name gricia con carciofi--I assume it's the same dish?
So sad about Campo de' fiori. I was living nearby (piazza san Paolo alla Regola) during the period when it began its sad decline. When I first moved there, it was just as you say, a real market. If you ask me, the beginning of the end was when they opened "The Drunken Ship"... Very appropriate name! Eventually we moved out of the area, largely because it was becoming too noisy at night.
I recently went back (October 2024) and found it had been almost completely taken over by stalls catering to tourists. We had lunch with an old friend who used to live on the Vicolo del Gallo. (His family owns the Antica Latteria if you've ever been there?) Needless to say, he was heartbroken by the turn the neighborhood had taken.