Spaghetti alle cipolle rosse e alici (Spaghetti with Red Onions and Anchovies)

Frank24 February 2018pasta, primi piatti45 Comments

What would the world be without onions? Along with their close cousins garlic and shallots, they seem to make their way into just about every savory dish. That’s certainly true of Italian cooking, at least. And yet, except maybe for onion soup, it seems onions are always the proverbial bridesmaid, never the bride. What a shame, since onions are packed with tremendous flavor.

Today’s dish, Spaghetti alle cipolle rosse e alici, Spaghetti with Red Onions and Anchovies, gives onions a rare chance to shine. The use of the sweet and relatively mild red onions prevents the dish from becoming overwhelming. A drizzle of white wine adds a subtly acidic note to balance out the onion’s sweetness. Yet another umami-packing ingredient, anchovies, creates a flavor combination that’s truly addictive. And personally I like to add a few drops of colatura before serving, just to gild the lily…

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

500g (1 lb) spaghetti
500g (1 lb) red onions, sliced
8 anchovy fillets, or more to taste
A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely minced
White wine
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Optional:

Toasted breadcrumbs
A few drops of colatura

Directions

In a wide skillet or braiser, sauté sliced red onions over low heat in a generous amount of olive oil, drizzling them from time to time with a few drops of white wine to help soften the onions and prevent them browning.

When the onions have softened and become translucent, add the anchovy filets and the parsley and cook for a few more minutes, just until the anchovies have melted into the oil. Add one last drizzle of wine and let it mostly (but not completely) evaporate. Season to taste with pepper and if you think it needs it, salt. (You should need very little if any.)

Cook the spaghetti al dente and, when they’re done, drain (but not too well, you’ll want some of the water to cling to the pasta to help moisten the dish) and turn them into the skillet with the onion and anchovy sauce, along with a few drops of the colatura if using. Mix well, then add the toasted breadcrumbs if using and mix again. (Also add some of the pasta water if you find the mixture too dry; the pasta should slither nicely as you toss it.)

Serve immediately, with some more chopped parsley and a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Notes on Spaghetti alle cipolle rosse e alici

The shape, flavor and texture of the sliced onions would go equally well with other long pasta shapes like spaghettini, spaghettoni, tonnarelli, linguine or bucatini.

The ideal choice of onion would be the cipolla rossa di Tropea, a varietal grown in Calabria since ancient times famed for its exquisite sweetness and beautiful color. I’ve never seen them sold here in the US, but apparently you can grow them from seed. If you don’t have red onions on hand, look for a sweet varietal like Vidalias or Walla-Wallas. Otherwise, good old yellow onions will do, for a more intensely onion-y if less colorful result.

A tip on slicing onions: It makes a big difference if you slice an onion lengthwise or across. When you want to onion slices to retain their individuality—and that’s what I wanted to for this dish—slice them from root to tip. If you want to onion for its flavor only, slice them thinly across the grain, and they will melt into whatever sauce you’re making.

On using anchovies

The anchovies would ideally be sotto sale, the kind that are packed whole in salt, rather than fillets in olive oil. They come in large cans of 800 g (or almost 2 lbs). That’s a lot of anchovies, but if you store them in the fridge they last more or less indefinitely. Rinse them under running water, gently separating the fillets from the backbone with your fingers as you go. Each anchovy will give you two fillets, so four whole anchovies will give you the 8 fillets called for in this recipe.

Even if you don’t like anchovies, don’t be put off. In these quantities, the anchovy melts into the sauce entirely and lends a background savor, leaving hardly a trace of fishiness. But if you must, you can do without the anchovy, too. The onions have plenty of flavor on their own. Or you could go a different direction and add a few bits of pancetta to the onions. That would give you a result slightly reminiscent of the classic Neapolitan pasta and onion dish, la genovese.

Same ingredients, different dish

Spaghetti con cipolle rosse e alici is fairly close in spirit to the famous Venetian dish bigoli in salsa, a thick spaghetti-like pasta typical of Venice, served with a similar sauce, only that the anchovies take center stage and the onions assume their usual supporting role. While the ingredients are practically the same, taste both as you’ll see they are two quite distinct dishes. Another example of how subtle changes in a recipe—in measurements or technique—produce very different results. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to present bigoli in salsa for quite a while now, but I’ve been working to perfect my bigoli-making before I do. Stay tuned…

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