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cooking · pasta

Spaghetti all'assassina

From a video by America's Test Kitchen · 1 min watch

A traditional pasta dish from Bari, Italy, where spaghetti is simmered in a concentrated tomato sauce and then crisped and charred at the bottom, creating a textural contrast of soft, tender strands alongside caramelized and crunchy bits, all coated in a spicy, deeply flavored tomato sauce.

pastamain dishItalian
Spaghetti all'assassina
Source video — America's Test Kitchen on YouTube
From the creator
America's Test Kitchen
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Watch the full video on YouTube ↗
Total time
~45 minutesEstimated by Unreel from the recipe steps — the creator didn't state this.
Hands-on
~20 minutesEstimated by Unreel from the recipe steps — the creator didn't state this.
Servings
~4 servingsEstimated by Unreel from the complete recipe.
Difficulty
MediumEstimated by Unreel from the recipe steps — the creator didn't state this.
Cook this recipe
Extraction confidence: high

Auto-generated from the video and rewritten in our own words. Double-check quantities against the source before cooking.

Ingredients

Ingredients scaled to 4 servings
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • garlic, to taste
  • chili flakes, to taste
  • passata di pomodoro
  • 1 lb dry spaghetti
  • 1 cup broth
  • broth, to taste
  • extra virgin olive oil, to taste

Preparation

  1. Step 1
    Heat extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet with garlic and chili flakes.
  2. Step 2
    Add a few glugs of passata di pomodoro and simmer vigorously to reduce.
  3. Step 3
    Add dry spaghetti and top it with about a cup of broth made with tomato paste and water. Let the strands sit in the bubbling liquid to drink it up and start to soften.
  4. Step 4
    Ladle in more broth each time the pan threatens to dry out.
  5. Step 5
    Keep adding broth, turning the spaghetti over and reducing the sauce until the strands are cooked through. It's like risottotura, the method used for making risotto.
  6. Step 6
    Increase the heat so the pasta at the bottom of the pan crisps, caramelizes, and scorches.
  7. Step 7
    Pull the spaghetti from the stove, twirl it onto a plate, and adorn the deliciously, deeply satisfying tangle with a drizzle of your very best extra virgin olive oil.

Notes