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Serves 4 as a starter or
2 as a main
1/2 recipe fresh bigoli (or 200g dried)
140g salted whole anchovies or sardines in salt, or 80g fillets thereof
1 medium onion (200g)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
125ml white wine
250ml water
11/2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Also good with this recipe
bucatini, maccheroni alla chitarra, pici, spaghetti |
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IN SALSA
Anchovy sauce |
This is a somewhat dry sauce that goes excellently with fresh noodles – fresh spaghetti are the most readily available substitute if you can’t get or won’t make bigoli.
If using whole salted fish, rinse and fillet them under cold running water. Chop the fillets of anchovy or sardine, but no need to do so very finely.
Halve the onion and slice very thinly across the grain. Put into a cold frying pan large enough to hold the pasta along with the fish and the oil. Fry over a medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring away until the anchovy/sardine has disintegrated, and the onion softened and just starting to colour. Add the wine and water and simmer gently for 45 minutes or so, until the sauce attains its thick, dry texture.
Cook the pasta and add to the sauce marginally undercooked, along with a few tablespoons of the pasta water and one tablespoon of the parsley. Cook together until the pasta is well coated in the sauce – it should look a little dry but not taste so (if it does, add a splash of water).
Serve with the remaining parsley on top. I am not, in general, one for over-refining presentation – nor am I averse to ubiquitous brown food, which often tastes so nice. The particular hue of this sauce is so unappetising, however, that it may be worth going the extra mile and serving it as nidi (nests), by winding large forkfuls against a spoon and carefully depositing a few of these neat, domed mounds on each plate before adding the final parsley. |
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