2023-08-19 06:58:02
Time.news – “One day Checco Zalone came here to eat and he invited me to a dinner where he would cook the killer spaghetti. Typical dish of Bari that has been depopulating in social networks lately”, the excellent chef Mauro Uliassi tells Gambero Rosso, always at the top of all the gastronomic rankings, whose restaurant in Senigallia “is rated with 3 Michelin stars, 5 Espresso hats, 3 Gambero Rosso forks”, as evidenced by the its official site.
And the light bulb of creativity and the idea’s replicability immediately went on in his head. However, spaghetti all’assassina is neither an ancient recipe nor a recovered dish, as is generally believed, but “an ancient dish of the Bari tradition”, whose birth dates back to 1967 when Enzo Francavilla, from Foggia, owner of Sorso Favorite in Bari, invented them from scratch for two customers who had taken a seat at the tables of his restaurant. And from that moment “spaghetti all’assassina became part of the menu of the Sorso Favorite in Bari”, still in business, conquering other customers and traveling from restaurant to restaurant, until it became one of the symbolic dishes of Bari.
An intriguing story that also conquered Mauro Uliassi, who tells us the following: the dish: “It was born from a chat with Luca Medici, aka Checco Zalone, an extraordinary person, as well as all the company with which he came here for lunch. At one point he invited me to a little party in his hotel in the evening, where he would cook spaghetti all’assassina. Great classic of Bari which, let’s face it, is not technically correct: in practice the spaghetti are put raw in the tomato and then gradually the broth made with the preserve is added, but the real secret is to get them to stick to the pan over and over again. Yet, with my boys, we were very attracted by the idea of including this dish in the Lab”.
The result is “having extrapolated the main feature of pasta all’assassina, its spiciness, creating an Arrabbiata sauce where instead of the tomato we used long red peppers, which have a medium level of spiciness and not very persistent. Then, with the parsley stems, we made a kind of tabbouleh, we put the garlic in infusion in the oil and lightly toasted crystals, and we added the ‘nduja and an oil made with ajowan, which has a marked cuminous scent”.
The pasta, then, must be made crunchy without burning it while traditional cooking does not allow it. On the other hand, the cooking point where the pasta yields and is then easy to roast should be spot on. Ideal format: Pietro Massi’s fusillone cooked in water for 34 minutes compared to the normal 12 minutes. Once overcooked, it is cooled and roasted in a pan and under the salamander, obtaining a roast that is actually two steps behind the burning. Here is Uliassi’s pasta all’assassina: roasted white fusillo (soft in the center and crunchy on the outside) with red pepper all’arrabbiata sauce, ‘nduja, toasted garlic crystals, ajowan oil and parsley tabbouleh. All this ignites the taste buds.
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