Bigoli in Salsa di Cipolle e Acciughe Veneziani
Venice, Veneto
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The working recipe — the Market List, the Method, and where it lives or dies
I
Origin
Venice, Veneto
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Description
The Venetian Lenten pasta: bigoli (thick, rough-textured whole wheat spaghetti extruded through a bronze die on the torchio, the Venetian pasta press) dressed with a slow-cooked sauce of white onions and desalted anchovies dissolved completely in olive oil. The Lenten character of the dish — no meat, no dairy — is historic; it was served on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Christmas Eve. The anchovies must dissolve entirely into the onion sauce, leaving no visible fish — only the umami.
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The Thread
—Anchovy dissolved in olive oil with onion as a pasta sauce — the Southern Italian parallel to the Venetian tradition Sicilian
—Slow-cooked onion as the base of a cured fish pasta sauce — the Iberian parallel Portuguese
—The Roman anchovy-onion combination used as a pasta sauce or vegetable condiment Roman
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Flavour Context
Rough wheat pasta coated in a silky sauce of dissolved anchovies and sweet collapsed onion — the Venetian Lenten discipline producing one of the most flavourful pasta sauces in Italy
Pillars V — VII
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