By Karla Walsh, NCS
(NCS) — Chef Hillary Sterling has labored in kitchens with culinary icons comparable to Bobby Flay and Missy Robbins. Sterling has traveled and eaten her manner by many corners of Italy, and he or she now helms the bustling New York City restaurant Ci Siamo.
But the Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef isn’t too proud to confess that when she’s residence alone for dinner, she sometimes stands on the counter scooping pretzels into hummus straight from the bathtub.
Chefs, they’re similar to us.
“My other guilty pleasure is to order delivery from Peter Luger, which is just five blocks from my house. I default to this so often that the team knows my order by heart: a Caesar salad and a burger, medium-rare,” Sterling stated, referring to the well-known New York City steakhouse.
The chef, who lives in Brooklyn with spouse Tess McNamara and their 4-year-old son, isn’t above a “girl dinner” or takeout. But Sterling additionally likes to return to her roots and whip up a easy 15-minute pasta dinner that reminds her of considered one of her beloved matriarchs.
“My grandparents grew up in the Depression, so my grandma was a thrifty yet soulful home cook,” Sterling instructed NCS. “She also created this environment in our house that was warm and inviting. We always gathered around the table.” To at the present time, the chef nonetheless desires about her grandmother’s kosher spaghetti and meatballs — served with mushy, squishy white bread.
Sterling swears by Bucatini all’Amatriciana as a go-to back-pocket dinner as a tip of her cap to her grandma — and to her ardour for Italian delicacies. Featured in her new cookbook, “Ammazza! Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again,” Sterling declared it “a dish I could eat every day.”
“I love amatriciana because it’s like the best parts of marinara, the sweet-tart tomatoes, mixed with my favorite part of carbonara: bacon. Or guanciale, if you have it. Plus, if you stock a can of tomato paste, an onion and a box of pasta in the pantry, have some bacon in the freezer, and keep some pecorino cheese in the fridge, you have everything you need for a satisfying meal for one,” Sterling stated.
Pasta is definitely one dish that’s sometimes higher to organize in single servings. Yes, even past these heat-and-eat cups of mac and cheese.
“That’s how I teach my cooks at the restaurant. It’s much easier to emulsify a pasta dish like cacio e pepe or amatriciana in one pan. It helps the marriage of the noodles and the sauce, supported by a splash of starchy pasta water,” she stated.
Enjoyed by itself or paired with roasted broccoli with garlic and a medium-bodied white wine like pinot grigio or mild crimson wine comparable to nebbiolo, Sterling believes this dinner for one would possibly simply encourage you to exclaim “ammazza!” — a Roman time period for a feeling of overwhelming pleasure and delight.
Amatriciana has roots very near Italy’s capital metropolis. The sauce and dish come from Amatrice, a city north of Rome close to Abruzzo, Sterling stated, “where it’s also claimed as a regional specialty.”
Becoming a chef and cookbook creator
Sterling bused tables throughout highschool and, after plodding by a year-long desk job she hated post-college, she accomplished culinary college in Chicago and hasn’t regarded again since. Soon, she’ll open a second location of Ci Siamo in Boston with restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. The chef stated she has all the time thought that “this is the best job in the world. I feel so much joy walking into my kitchen every morning.”
With her cookbook full of greater than 100 recipes to serve one or a celebration — plus loads of suggestions alongside the best way — Sterling hopes to encourage residence cooks to really feel a bit extra delight (or at the least confidence) within the kitchen, too.
“My main goal is to teach people to be comfortable cooking and to trust themselves. Using your senses is key. As is not being perfect. It’s OK to make mistakes over and over to figure out what you like,” Sterling stated, earlier than asserting that even “bad” pasta is commonly fairly good. And that hummus and pretzels could be a strong backup plan.
Bucatini all’Amatriciana
While you might use a crimson onion so as to add an fragrant word, Sterling prefers a shallot as a result of it lends extra pure sweetness, cooks quicker and is a perfect measurement for a person portion. If you can’t discover or don’t love bucatini, she urged making an attempt this similar components with rigatoni.
Serves 1
Total cooking time: About quarter-hour
Ingredients
- Kosher salt
- 1 cup water
- 2 ounces guanciale or pancetta, rind eliminated, reduce into ¼-inch-thick strips (Bacon is a appropriate substitute if you choose.)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 massive shallot, petaled (see word*)
- Crushed crimson pepper flakes
- 5 tablespoons double-concentrated tomato paste
- 5 ounces bucatini
- Freshly grated Pecorino Romano, for garnish
- Optional: Calabrian chili oil, for garnish
Instructions
- Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, generously salt the water.
- In a small saucepan, deliver 1 cup water to a boil and set it apart. This unsalted scorching water will likely be used to construct the sauce.
- In a medium sauté pan, warmth the guanciale and the olive oil over excessive warmth. Once the guanciale begins scorching, cut back the warmth to medium-low and prepare dinner, stirring typically, till the guanciale crisps and renders its fats, about 3 minutes.
- Reduce the warmth to low, add the shallot on to the fats, and prepare dinner, stirring typically, till mushy and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add a pinch of crimson pepper flakes to the fats, then take away the pan from the warmth and let the pepper flakes bloom, about 1 minute. (If the pepper flakes begin spitting at you, it means your oil is just too scorching, and you will burn them.) Pour off about one-quarter of the oil from the pan and reserve it for cooking eggs the subsequent morning.
- Return the pan to medium warmth and stir within the tomato paste. Cook, stirring typically, till the tomato paste turns the fats crimson, 2 to three minutes. Add 6 tablespoons of the reserved scorching water to the pan and convey the tomato combination to a boil. Stir always till the fats, water, and tomato paste emulsify and thicken the sauce, about 30 seconds. Remove the pan from warmth and put aside.
- Add the bucatini to the boiling water and prepare dinner till al dente, utilizing the package deal instructions as a guideline — however style a piece for your self.
- Using tongs, carry the pasta out of the water and switch it to the pan, bringing alongside any pasta water that adheres and drips from the pasta. Return the pan to medium-high warmth and prepare dinner, tossing vigorously, till the pasta turns reddish pink — a signal that it’s absorbing the sauce — about 3 minutes. Add a few extra splashes of the reserved scorching water. Continue cooking and tossing till the tomato and fats merge to create a lovely, shiny sauce that coats the pasta, about 30 seconds extra.
- Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with Pecorino Romano and extra pepper flakes or Calabrian chili oil, if you’d prefer it spicier. Eat scorching.
*Note: To petal the shallot, first halve it. Place every half flat aspect down on a chopping board. Working one at a time, reduce it into 4 wedge-shaped items, every ¼- to ½-inch thick, slicing from the middle outward. Gently pull aside the layers to kind petal-like shapes.
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Recipe tailored from “Ammazza! Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again” by Hillary Sterling with Theresa Gambacorta. Copyright © 2026 by Hillary Sterling and Theresa Gambacorta. Published by Scribner.