On July 29th I had the delight of cooking with Sandra while passing through Rome. If you find yourself in Rome, you can find her Facebook page, “Cook N Speak”. I brought my friend Alessandro along and here is what we did:

We made a beautiful salsa di pomodoro for our pizza: 500 gr. little tomatoes, 1 garlic clove, basil, salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar. chilly pepper. Boil the tomatoes for 5 minutes in boiling water, when the tomatoes skin is splitting, it means they are ready. Peel them and chop in pieces, take a pan add olive oil the squashed garlic and the chopped tomatoes, salt , chilly pepper and sugar cook low flame, add 7-8 basil leaves. Cook for 10 minutes. The small tomatoes did not have a lot of seeds. The only tricky part is peeling a hot tomato…and I do not recall how she managed that! But this makes a beautiful pizza sauce

We then tackled a fried pizza. Here is how we did the impasto (dough) per pizza: 1 liter of water, 1.6 kg of flour 0 otherwise 00, 1 tea spoon of sugar, 4g of fresh beer yeast, 45 g of salt.
Take a little bowl add 4g of yeast  and 1 glass of hot water and a teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of flour, mix all together wait 15 minutes until you see the yeast is growing. Take a big bowl and pour the flour and salt then pour the mixture of yeast and the warm water, knead with the hands for almost 5 minutes then leave the dough rest for 3/4 hours. Fry them in olive oil, tomato sauce on the top with parmigiano or mozzarella di bufala!!

Here is how we made the pasta for the Amatriciana: 150gr of plain flour 00, 150gr of durum flour (semolina), 1 pinch of salt and 3 eggs. Mix the 2 flours with the eggs make a dough , first step use a fork to mix flour with eggs and a pinch of salt, then start to knead on your wooden board sprinkled with flour. Work your pasta until seems elastic and not sticky, more and less 10 minutes. Leave it rest almost for 30 minutes covered by a kitchen film at ambient temperature.Roll the dough into a thin sheet, remember to use flour on the pasta on the wooden board. You can make tagliatelle, lasagne, ravioli with the same dough. I made this with just the semolina, and it really needs the plain flour to soften it up!

Now for the Amatriciana: If you don’t make your own pasta, recommend De Cecco # 12, 250 gr of pork cheek (GUANCIALE) otherwise bacon, 500 gr of fresh tomatoes otherwise a tin of tomatoes sauce, 150 grams of  pecorino (sheep cheese) grated, black pepper at the end on the top of the pasta,  salt . Cut the bacon in cubes, peel the tomatoes after you boiled them in hot water, in the frying pan add the bacon cubes, and let it heat over high heat. Reduce the heat and fry the bacon for a few minutes, until he reached the golden yellow colour. So beware, seize the moment it is one of the secrets of Amatriciana, add tomatoes peeled and cut. Cook the sauce for about 10 minutes, until it reaches the right degree of density and fluidity. boil the spaghetti , toss the pasta in the pan where you cooked the salsa, adding a little at a time the grated pecorino and the boiled water of the pasta . Pour spaghetti Amatriciana in a dish, cheese and grated black pepper on the top and serve hot.

Finally, Tiramisu! 250 gr. di mascarpone, 2 eggs, 1 pinch of salt, 5 spoons powdered sugar, 1 pinch of vanilla, caffe,’ savoiardi biscuits. Separate the yolk from the white, in bowl whisk the yolk with the powdered sugar and vanilla, join the mascarpone and mix it very well, take another bowl and whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt ( has to be very stiff). Mix the whipped egg whites and the mascarpone cream together.
Make a caffe’ and soak the savoiardi in it, take some glass cups and make layers with the biscuits and mascarpone cream, on the top bitter cocoa and a pinch of caffe’ powder, put in the fridge