Spaghetti all'assassina (fried pasta, kinda)

it's just spaghetti in tomato sauce but also kind of not it's spaghetti alasacina that's the feminine form of assassin it's from my ancestral homeland of bari in southeast italy and it's fascinating it's just spaghetti and red sauce but it's cooked in a manner totally different from like every other bowl of pasta you've had in your life it's more fried than it is boiled so it tastes really different the sauce is generally a little spicy so from my version of this dish i'm going to prepare a little garnish of charred pickled chilies a big pinch of sugar in a little bowl maybe a pinch of salt and then some vinegar any vinegar doesn't matter if that doesn't fully dissolve at first these are serrano chilis but i'd get anything small that's mild enough to where you can handle eating it whole and i'm gonna grab that with tongs and just blister it right in the flame from my gas burner rotate it around get it almost blackened all over it'll feel like it's not cooked inside yet but the inside will soften as it sits in this quick pickle solution it's still steaming hot if you don't have a gas stove you could do this with a kitchen torch or under the broiler in the oven but i probably wouldn't bother with that this is just a non-traditional garnish i'm doing for fun there i've got two quick pickles for two portions of pasta they'll taste like pickles by the time we're done cooking everything else i've also got two jalapenos here i'm gonna slice really thick for the sauce normally people just put dried red chili flakes in the sauce but i want there to be some noticeable vegetables on the plate if you don't want it super hot you could just pop the white pith out of some or all of these rounds the heat is almost entirely in the white stuff i'll peel and chop a big pile of garlic no need to chop it very fine because these pieces are going to be cooked and broken down very thoroughly as we cook our pasta for that same reason i think it's good to start with whole fresh tomatoes rather than a pre-cooked tomato sauce and in my part of the world i think these are usually the best fresh tomatoes for sauce that you're going to find in a mainstream grocery store grape or cherry tomatoes pretty good in any season one of these 10 ounce 283 gram containers for two portions and i will puree them as smooth as possible if you don't have some kind of food processor yeah i suppose you could chop them up really fine with a knife but i wouldn't bother i'd probably just use canned tomato puree in that case you can strain this to get out the skins and the seeds but i don't think there's any point fiber is good for you and the pieces are so small you probably won't even notice whatever kind of tomato product you're starting with the traditional thing is to dilute it down to like a tomato broth so i'll put in at least an equivalent volume of water it doesn't have to be precise and then i'll grab a big pinch of salt i want it to taste like it's as salty as a good soup would taste i know this recipe is already super weird the traditional pan for this would be a big well-seasoned cast iron pan i've tested this and i think this dish is a hundred times easier to do in a teflon pan and the results are better certainly this dish would be impossible to make in a stainless steel pan a generous film of olive oil in there remember the pasta is going to fry so we need some oil in goes the garlic and peppers to get a little head start although that probably isn't necessary i will put in a squeeze of tomato paste to provide that concentrated highly reduced tomato flavor that i'm not going to get from my fresh tomatoes i'll get my spaghetti half a pound half a package for two big portions that's like 225 grams and this dish comes out better if you get the cheaper pasta with a smooth shiny surface the fancy bronze cut pasta with the rough surface just sheds too much starch in this dish and the sauce comes out kind of pasty okay real quick i'm gonna pour in a thin layer of my tomato broth into the pan and look it's a 10 inch pan and the spaghetti is not going to fit so i have to break it call the pasta police you just lay the totally dry pasta in there nudge it around to get all the strands nestled down into the sauce this will also have the effect of displacing the peppers and the garlic up and out toward the rim which is good they're less likely to burn there now we'll just wait until enough water has evaporated that the spaghetti on the bottom starts to brown like that once that bottom layer is golden i'll put in another little dose of broth it's just like the traditional way of making risotto just work that liquid in maybe try to break apart any clumps of noodles that form but they'll probably break apart themselves as we go and actually the clumps are kind of nice at the end and while that dose of tomato water absorbs and evaporates you can just hang out for a minute which is plenty of time to save some money with the sponsor of this video fetch rewards fetch is a free app you can use to take a picture of any retail receipt this is my grocery receipt but any receipt from any kind of store or restaurant will work i take the picture then all i have to do is hit submit down here in the corner fetch uploads the receipt chunks on it for a sec and immediately sends me some reward points back 1500 nice if you shop online and don't have paper receipts no problem hit e receipts and it'll scan your email inbox for anything eligible yes delivery from that particular establishment is my guilty pleasure and we don't talk about it but i get points from all of these and you can use the points like gift cards at nearly any kind of store you could imagine or you could literally convert them into cash cards i'm going to donate my points to charity today for a limited time you can hit my link in the description use code regucia and get 3 000 points when you scan your first receipt download the app with my link in the description use my code ragusia and boom 3000 points on your first receipt thank you fetch and indeed like 60 seconds later enough water has evaporated that the bottom layer of spaghetti is frying again you'll know when it's happening it smells different it sounds different you hear fizzing and popping instead of bubbling that's the sound of stuff frying in oil you want to let that layer of spaghetti get good and brown before you repeat the process all over again another splash of tomato broth another good stirring to get all the pasta wet and flipped around so that a different layer can brown on the bottom you can see how thoroughly the sauce is going to get cooked via this process that's why i think it's best to start with raw fresh tomatoes we'll still have at least a little bright freshness left by the time we've cooked everything here to smithereens but honestly you could just use a jar or a can of tomato sauce and water it down maybe two parts water to one part sauce alrighty stuff is starting to fry again as you can see on the bottom a lot of recipes for this by italian folks tend to tell you to burn the bottom layer of spaghetti i suspect that's kind of a translation issue i don't think you literally want to burn things black but deep brown is good this is my fourth and final dose of tomato broth that should probably be enough to get the pasta cooked al dente stir stir stir it's interesting pasta like this that is cooked entirely in the sauce instead of in plain boiling water it tastes really different you taste the flavor of the sauce all the way through the noodle which i don't think is necessarily better i like contrast but this is good too i'm tasting that strand for seasoning could use another little pinch of salt before i evaporate out all the water and there's nothing left to dissolve the salt this is my last chance to really fry the noodles so i'm going to let that pan get really dry wait for the bottom to really brown get in there and oh there's the thumbnail if we were just using a stainless steel pan all of that brown stuff would stick to the bottom of the pan with my cast iron some of the brown stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan but with the teflon pan it all stays right on the noodle which is where i want it tradition be damned if you're out of tomato broth but the noodles still need to cook a little more or if you just want more liquid for a saucier texture you could totally just splash in some water or a little white wine if you're you know me makes almost everything better lastly i'll tear in some basil leaves i really like how the cooling sensation of basil contrasts with the spicy sauce stir that in and i think i might want a little more wine just to loosen up the sauce it's going to tighten up in just the time it takes for me to transfer this to a plate you know i don't eat a ton of pasta anymore because i try to wash my carbs and i keep forgetting that tongs are a far easier way to transfer any long noodle shape to a plate much better now i can garnish with my quick pickled charred chili not traditional and not necessary but very nice it fits with the almost smoky taste you get on that browned pasta and with the intensely sweet and sour tomato sauce that sauce gets cooked down to almost a jam it's very sweet especially because we used grape tomatoes which are extra sweet and the texture of the pasta itself is just so different it's got this toothiness it's crusty and because a lot of its starch kind of rubbed out into the sauce during cooking the sauce is velvety just like risotto risotto has a velvety mouth feel for the exact same reason this pasta is sweet and soft but with this dark spicy undercurrent of danger al-assasina the feminine form of assassin she cooks you this pasta and then she grats you they'll probably want to garat me back in bari when they see how i altered their traditional dish but i stand by my decisions

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 2,238,258

Keywords:

Id: X8B5ZtKIlWY

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 21 2022