Spaghetti all'Assassina (the Assassin's Spaghetti). Do you know this dish?
Contrary to popular belief, the invention of "Spaghetti all'Assassina" does not go back to the beginning of time but just a little over 50 years ago, exactly to 1967, in a small restaurant in the city of Bari, in the Apulia region of Southern Italy.
What's so special about this dish, you ask? Well, you may say this is one of the first examples of one-pot pasta!
The spaghetti are cooked directly on the pan in a tomato sauce. A thin tomato broth is added ladle by ladle (similarly to making risotto) until the pasta is cooked through. You then let the spaghetti become slightly crispy. The sauce has to be extra spicy and garlicky!
Want to try this? If you like spicy food, you're going to love it!
Ingredients (for 4)
400g spaghetti
400g chunky tomato sauce
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
2 fresh red chillies minced (adjust to taste)
2 tbsp tomato concentrate diluted in 4 cups of water
1 tsp salt
Method
Choose the widest pan you have so that you don't need to break the spaghetti.
Heat up the oil and add the minced garlic and chilli. Add the tomato sauce, season with a pinch of salt and mix well. Place the spaghetti on top of the sauce, without breaking them and start spooning the sauce on top of the spaghetti to cover them.
In another small pot, dissolve the tomato concentrate in water, add salt and bring to a simmer to make a broth.
Add one ladle of the tomato broth to the pasta and mix. The spaghetti will start to soften. Continue to add the tomato broth, one ladle at a time, mixing in between to make sure it gets absorbed by the spaghetti. Keep going until the pasta is cooked through, the sauce has thickened and the spaghetti start getting slightly browned and crispy at the bottom.
Your Spaghetti all'Assassina are ready and should be eaten immediately.
Buon appetito!!
Word of the Day
Assassino
(Assassin, pronounced as·sas·sì·no)
