Bucatini amatriciana.JPG

Bucatini (), also known as perciatelli (), are a thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole running through the center. They are common throughout Lazio, particularly Rome.

The similar ziti are long hollow rods which are also smooth in texture and have square-cut edges; "cut ziti" are ziti cut into shorter tubes. There is also a wider version of ziti, zitoni .

Name

The name comes from the Italian ''buco'', meaning "hole", while '' bucato'' or its Neapolitan language variant ''perciato'' means "pierced".

Composition and use

Bucatini are a tubed pasta made of hard durum wheat flour and water. Its length is with a diameter. The average cooking time is nine minutes.

In Italian cuisine, bucatini are served with buttery sauces, guanciale, vegetables, cheese, eggs, and anchovies or sardines. One of the most common sauces to serve with bucatini is the Amatriciana sauce, ''bucatini all'amatriciana''. It is traditionally made with guanciale, a type of cured meat taken from the pork jowl.

Raw bucatini can be used as a biodegradable drinking straw.

Preparation

Standard pasta machines will roll out sheets of flat pasta which are then cut into ribbons to make flat, ribbon-style pasta like fettuccine, tagliatelle, or pappardelle. Bucatini, on the other hand, has to be extruded rather than rolled.

The pasta dough is fed into a machine that forces it through a perforated disk, very similar to a meat grinder. The shape of the pasta depends on the shape of the perforations. Bucatini are made with a disk with tiny circular perforations, which forces the pasta dough to emerge in long tubes. The tubes are then trimmed off to the desired length and then either dried or cooked fresh.

Bucatini can be made at home with a stand mixer and a pasta extruder. Since bucatini have a hole in the middle, they must be handled gently so as not to squeeze the hole shut prior to eating.

See also

* Bigoli
* Macaroni
* Baked ziti

References

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Cuisine of Lazio
Types of pasta