In the winter, I always make tons of this pasta and freeze it in quart-size Ziploc bags for quick meals. It’s inspired by some of the best sauces I’ve eaten all over Italy and New York City (thank you to Michael White for teaching me how to appreciate and create real pasta). I like this sauce with tubetti or short mezzi rigatoni, so that it gets into all the holes. The pork lends fattiness, the wine gives a balanced acidity, and the pancetta delivers all the wholesome saltiness you could ever want from an ingredient. If you use really high-quality pancetta, you will also get a fine line of cured funk throughout the dish that is sublime. —Andrew Zimmern

What is strozzapreti?

With origins in central Italy, strozzapreti is an eggless pasta shaped into small, twisted cords, like an elongated cavatelli. It has a satisfyingly chewy texture and lots of crevices that make it great for catching chunky sauces, which is why it’s recommended here. Its name translates to “priest stranglers” in Italian, either because gluttonous priests ate it so quickly that they risked choking, or because the housewives who made it were so resentful of the gluttonous priests that they cursed the dough in the hopes that the priests would choke on the thick strands.

Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen

• Zimmern advises against using cheap pancetta, but says Boar’s Head brand is just fine.


• You’ll only use the white and light green part of the leek for this recipe, but you needn’t discard that dark green top. It may be tough and woody, but it’s also really flavorful — perfect for making broths and stocks. Tuck it in the freezer for later use if need be.