Another very Italian dish in this mini-series is Pasta alla Gricia. The name rolls tripplingly off the tongue in Italian, less so in English as “pasta gray”. I was led to research and then make this dish because of “guanciale” (cured pork jowl). I had finally tried guanciale properly about a month ago, when making an authentic version of Pasta Amatricana, and I decided I really do like it at least as much as pancetta.

The recipe for alla Gricia is pretty simple:

Rather than duplicate the details here, I refer you to an excellent article by Sasha Marx on Serious Eats.

Here’s what the dish looked like when done. Quite delicious. A Godello from Spain was a good match.