P+P recipe XIV: Assassin’s Spaghetti With Stracciatella
Today marks the ominous Ides of March, an ancient Roman calendar day and date of Julius Caesar’s assassination. To celebrate the macabre occasion I thought I’d spaghetti all’assassina (that’s actually a typo my husband proofread but I like the accidental verb usage). Originating from the Southern Italian city of Bari, located in the Puglia region, assassin’s spaghetti is comfort food at its best: crispy, spicy, and in this case crowned with gooey stracciatella cheese.
While the OG recipe for spaghetti all’assassina doesn’t contain cheese there are several variations including Assassina di Rape, made with broccoli rabe and stracciatella, and Assassina di Mare, which features prawns, squids, and a traditional Apulian fish broth called ciambotto. Such is Bari’s local pride that there is even a devoted Accademia di Spaghetti all’Assassina.
INGREDIENTS:
12 ounces spaghetti
2 cups tomato purée
Tomato paste
Olive oil
3 cloves garlic
Chili pepper
Stracciatella
Salt to taste
DIRECTIONS:
Prepare a broth of water, 1½ cups purée, and several generous teaspoons of tomato paste, season with salt to your taste. Bring to a boil.
In the pan add a half cup of olive oil, garlic and chili pepper to taste. You can either mince the garlic cloves or leave them whole while cooking. When the garlic is golden pour in about half a cup of tomato purée.
Spread the purée over the entire pan and allow it to gradually reduce. Add the uncooked spaghetti, making sure the pasta is fully submerged in the sauce. Slowly rotate the spaghetti, making sure nothing gets stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add 2 generous ladles’ worth of the tomato broth and let it reduce without turning the spaghetti. When you hear the telltale sizzle you’ll know the pasta is getting its burn on so give it another 30 seconds or so to do its thing. Repeat and resume turning the spaghetti while adding more of the tomato broth.
By now the spaghetti should bend. At this point you can keep the spaghetti going to blacken it more or remove it. Top with stracciatella and serve piping hot.
Serves about 4*
NOTES: If you need to smooth out the acidity of the tomatoes but don’t want to use sugar you can add a pinch of baking soda. The science sciences, I promise.
Per Apulian cuisine historian Felice Giovine, spaghetti all’assassina originated in the 1960s at Barese restaurant Al Sorso Preferito under chef Enzo Francavilla. The name itself is thought to pertain to complimenting the chef as in “You killed it!” or conversely the way the spaghetti dies a slow, deliciously burnt death.
Buon appetito and watch your backs out there, babes.
