Spaghetti all'Assassina

Raw spaghetti cooked in an iron pan in tomato water until it chars.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g spaghetti, dry and uncooked
• 700 g passata
• 1 litre water
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 2 dried chillies
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt

Method

1. Make a thin tomato water: whisk the passata into the litre of water with the salt and keep it hot in a separate pan.
2. Heat an iron or heavy steel frying pan — not non-stick, which cannot take the heat and will not char — with the oil, garlic and chilli.
3. PUT THE SPAGHETTI IN DRY AND RAW, straight into the hot pan, and let it sit and toast for a minute before adding any liquid.
4. Now add the hot tomato water a ladle at a time, as for a risotto, letting each one be absorbed before the next. 15 to 18 minutes.
5. THE PASTA IS MEANT TO STICK AND BURN IN PLACES. Leave it alone between ladles and let the bottom catch — scrape it up and turn it in, and repeat. Those blackened bits are the dish, and stirring to prevent them is making a different, duller thing.
6. It is finished when the pasta is cooked through, the pan is nearly dry and the spaghetti is crusted and stained dark red.
7. It should taste faintly of burning. That is correct, and it is where the name comes in.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes