Spaghetti all’Assassina is the new hit of Bari cuisine. If before it was impossible to visit the Apulian capital without a taste of raw fish, today you cannot say you have been to Bari without having eaten this dish at least once. Born at the end of the 1960s, they immediately achieved great success, spreading throughout the city, but already in the 1980s they began to disappear.
Spaghetti all’Assassina have then gained almost international fame since 2013 thanks to the Rai fiction The investigations of Lolita Lobosco and the episode dedicated to Puglia of the Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy program by CNN.
The dish was born in 1967 in the kitchens of the Al Sorso Lavorato restaurant. According to an initial reconstruction, the owners of the restaurant found the recipe by acquiring the rooms adjacent to the first nucleus of the restaurant, a former rotisserie. On the wall of that kitchen they would have found a sheet of paper with this bizarre preparation. Remade by chef Sorso, the result was a dish so good that it was put on the menu. Due to the spiciness, the first customers called the chef “assassin“, a word from which the name of the dish later came.
Here are the ingredients and procedure to replicate at home, which includes, for 4 people, 320 g of vermicelli or spaghetti, 400 g of tomato puree, tomato paste, oil, garlic, sugar and chili pepper to taste. The original recipe recommends using pasta with little starch and avoiding bronze-drawn pasta. It starts with dry spaghetti, rehydrated through the risotto technique. However, to shorten the cooking time, there are also those who blanch the pasta. But tradition does not like shortcuts.
Bring a broth made with water, 300 grams of puree and plenty of tomato paste and salt to the boil. The sauce must have a bright red color and be tasty, while maintaining the consistency of a broth. Put 100 ml of oil, three cloves of garlic with the core removed and chili pepper to taste in the pan. The garlic is browned over a high flame, then a glass or less of tomato puree is poured (100 g). To correct the acidity of the tomato, a teaspoon of sugar is allowed. The tomato sauce is then distributed with a wooden spoon over the entire pan to reduce it. At this point the raw spaghetti is added, distributing it so that the pasta is in contact with the sauce. There is no need to rush to turn it: this is where the delicious crust is created. The spaghetti will begin to caramelize, but without carbonizing. At a certain point they will begin to stick to the bottom of the pan: this is the moment to start turning them, bringing up the ones that are already browned. Next, pour two medium-sized ladles of tomato “broth” into the pan. The liquid will sizzle and begin to boil, you need to let it consume, without turning the spaghetti. The cooking time will be indicated by the sound. In fact, when you hear the spaghetti sizzling, you need to cook for about ten seconds, allowing the “burning” process to continue.
Only at this point should the most burnt spaghetti be brought up, adding more tomato liquid. Each addition must correspond to the time necessary to make the preparation sizzle and then repeat by wetting the pasta with the sauce. From rigid, the spaghetti will begin to bend, in total it will take about 9 minutes. From the procedure you can understand why another of the stories surrounding the name Assassina comes from its cooking method. In fact, just like a killer, the cook “must make the pasta suffer” in its broth. The final result is a first course of calloused spaghetti with a crunchy part, given by the burnt pasta. The balance between the parts is a choice of the chef. When the Assassina is ready, it is brought to the table directly in the pan.
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