‘KILLER’ PASTA DISH GOES FOR THE BURN
Spaghetti cooked in tomato sauce ends up charred, smoky
When it comes to cooking pasta, Celso Laforgia breaks every rule in the book. His spaghetti isn’t ivory-colored and tender. It’s dark as polished ebony and it crunches like grissini. He doesn’t cook it in boiling water. He chars the raw noodles in a skillet. He seasons it not with the usual fresh garlic, but with powdered, and if that’s not iconoclastic enough here in southern Italy, his restaurant, Urban L’Assassineria Urbana in the pulsing city of Bari in Apulia, serves such decidedly un-Italian dishes as tacos and bao.
But to come to Bari without sampling this spaghetti all’Assassina would be like visiting Rome and missing the Colosseum.
It’s a tall, tight coil of spaghetti that’s audibly crisp, the individual strands charred and smoky. The intensely concentrated, unmistakably homemade tomato sauce has been cooked right into the pasta, not tossed with it or ladled on top.
“To be honest, I didn’t invent spaghetti all’Assassina,” Laforgia said. Nonetheless, he has emerged as its most famous practitioner — thanks in part to his appearance in 2022 on Stanley Tucci’s CNN show “Searching for Italy.” Laforgia now serves 700 to 1,000 orders a week, and he estimates that 10 percent of his customers are American.
The dish has been a favorite in Bari for more than 50 years. Vincenzo Rizzi, the Bari-born weekly restaurant columnist for the Corriere del Mezzogiorno, traces it to 1967 and Enzo Francavilla of the Osteria al Sorso Preferito. “One evening, the chef prepared a dish of very spicy and slightly burnt spaghetti with tomato sauce for some customers,” Rizzi said. “It was probably burned by mistake, but the diners seemed to like it.”
“You’re trying to kill us,” the customers joked on account of the charred noodles and fiery chiles and called the dish spaghetti all’Assassina, which translates to “killer spaghetti.” The recipe was inherited by the restaurant’s longtime current owner, Pierino Lonigro, and it remains a house specialty to this day.
Its preparation uses a cooking technique called “risottatura,” said Elizabeth Minchilli, who runs food tours in Bari and Puglia. Often, dried spaghetti is pan-fried raw with garlic and chiles, just as you’d sizzle Arborio rice in oil to start a risotto. You gradually stir in liquid (salted water and tomato sauce, in this case), simmering the spaghetti to the firmer side of al dente. In this, it’s not unlike fideos, the Spanish pasta dish that’s cooked like paella.
But unlike risotto, which you cook until creamy (all’onda — wavelike, as Italians like to say), you continue cooking Assassina until the sauce is completely absorbed and the spaghetti begins to char. A slosh of olive oil and couple deft flips of the pan, and it’s ready.
At Urban L’Assassineria Urbana, Laforgia serves nontraditional versions, too, such as Assassina 2.0 (topped with stracciatella), Alla Puttanesca (lit up with olives, capers and anchovies) and the perennially popular Alla San Juannidde (named for St. John and garnished with anchovies, pesto and confit cherry tomatoes).
Not everyone approves of these innovations. Sandro Romano, the director of the Oraviaggiando Italian restaurant guide, prefers the original recipe to the variations. “My personal opinion is that it is not good for tradition and that burning everything is extreme,” he said. “Plus it negates the complexity of Bari’s culinary tradition.”
This spicy one-pot pasta dish can easily be prepared at home. The method involves treating spaghetti as you would risotto: Heat some garlic, red pepper flakes and tomato paste in oil, then add the pasta and cook it gently, slowly adding tomato broth little by little. Once the pasta soaks up the liquid, it starts to char. You can make this dish as mild or spicy as you wish.
Makes 4 servings
21⁄2 cups jarred or homemade tomato sauce
1⁄4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, or more to taste
In a medium saucepan, heat the tomato sauce with 31⁄2 cups water over medium heat. Stir to combine and bring the tomato broth to a simmer.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a 12- to 14-inch nonstick or cast-iron skillet over medium.
Add red pepper flakes and garlic to the skillet and cook, stirring, until garlic is just beginning to brown, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, press it into the pan to spread it out, and cook until it begins to melt and toast.
Using a ladle or big spoon, add about 1⁄2 cup of the warm tomato broth to the pan and swirl to combine with the other ingredients.
Carefully place the spaghetti into the pan on top of the sauce. (The spaghetti should fit lengthwise, but you can break the strands to fit in your pan, if need be.) Ladle 1 cup of the tomato broth on top of the pasta. Using a fork, move the spaghetti strands until evenly coated, pressing the spaghetti to distribute the broth until it evenly coats the pasta.
Allow the pasta to cook for 3 minutes. Once the broth is absorbed, add 11⁄2 cups tomato broth and repeat the process. As the pasta softens, move the strands out so they begin to create an even layer in the skillet.
Add another 11⁄2 cups broth. Rearrange the pasta again
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced 2 teaspoons tomato paste 1 pound (uncooked) spaghetti so it’s in an even layer and covered in liquid, and cook another 3 minutes.
At the 9-minute mark, the pasta should begin to crackle and sizzle. Gently lift the pasta and peek underneath it. There should be crispy, almost burnt pieces. If so, flip the pasta. If not, increase heat a bit until it crisps, then flip and continue.
Once the pasta is flipped, add the remaining broth. At this point, the pasta should be soft enough to easily move in the pan. Continue cooking until broth is absorbed and pasta is cooked through but still al dente. (If your pasta is still on the firmer side, you can add a splash of water, if needed, and cook until al dente.)
Divide among bowls. Serve immediately.
Recipe by Anna Francese Gass.