Recipe: Truly, Elizabeth Hewson’s Zozzona Rigatoni Is a Delicious “Dirty Mess”

When Elizabeth Hewson releases a new cookbook, you’d better believe there’s pasta involved. The Saturday Night Pasta author’s latest, Home Food, is filled with easy, comforting recipes designed to make busy lives as delicious as possible. But none are as fun to say as “zozzona alla rigatoni”.

“I only recently discovered this Roman pasta dish,” writes Hewson. “It has been described as a marriage of the famous Roman pastas – cacio e pepe, amatriciana, carbonara and alla gricia – with a little sausage cameo. 

“The name translates to ‘a dirty mess’, and it truly is – in the most delicious way.”

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Elizabeth Hewson’s zozzona 

Serves 2–3
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
60–70g guanciale or pancetta, cut into lardons (or batons)
150g (about 2) pork and fennel sausages
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 x 400g can whole tomatoes
½ tsp salt
¼–½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
Dried chilli flakes (optional)
200–250g short dried pasta such as rigatoni mezzi, paccheri or rigatoni
2 egg yolks
¼ cup grated pecorino (preferably, but parmesan will work too), or to taste

Method

Place a large, deep frying pan over medium–low heat. Add the olive oil and guanciale and fry slowly until golden and crisp, about 8–10 minutes. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Pour the rendered fat into a small bowl, leaving about 1 tbsp in the pan.

Increase the heat to medium. Squeeze the sausage out of its casing into little nuggets, no larger than 1cm. Fry, undisturbed, for 1 minute, then fry the other side for another minute until they’re nicely golden. 

Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for about 1 minute, then add the tomatoes, breaking them up with the back of a spoon. Season with salt, pepper and dried chilli, if using. Reduce the heat and let the sauce gently simmer, stirring occasionally, until it thickens slightly – around 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Cook the pasta until it’s well shy of al dente – about 3 minutes less than the packet instructions. The plan is to finish cooking it in the sauce.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, pecorino, and 1 tbsp of the reserved guanciale fat (discarding the rest).

Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup (250ml) of the cooking water. Add half of the cooking water to the pan and toss the pasta through the sauce. Cook over medium–high heat for about 1–2 minutes, adding more pasta water as needed to keep the sauce loose. Stir ¼ cup of the reserved pasta water into the egg yolk mixture.

Remove the pan from the heat. Add the cooked guanciale and the egg yolk mixture to the pasta, tossing rapidly to combine. Stir until the pasta is glossy, about 30 seconds. Serve immediately.

This is an edited extract from Home Food by Elizabeth Hewson. Published by Murdoch Books (RRP $45).