Nothing cooks to warm the mood. Today is pasta in the style of Giovanni Passerini.
Passerini’s chef (Paris XII), Giovanni Passerini gave Victor Loup (1) his recipe for “spaghetti de mezzanot” or midnight spaghetti. “Spaghetti di mazzanot is a common dish in Rome and Naples, in fact the two cities dispute the origin of the recipe, She is explaining. It’s so classic that it can belong to both traditions and has only a few ingredients: garlic, oil and pepper. It is the ideal dish for a midnight meal, after a cookout or even during. At Passerini, we do this from time to time, very late after service, drinking and playing guitar. We add anchovies and roasted bread, which almost depends on the texture of the minced meat: these are “Jacques-Etienne” spaghetti, named after one of our favorite customers the night we made this recipe for the first time.
For four people, you need: 400 grams of spaghetti; 2 slices of country bread; 4 anchovies; 1 lemon; 2 cloves garlic; 1 small dry red pepper; 12 Selina Caper; 40 grams of parsley; 250 ml extra-virgin olive oil; salt flower
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Remove the crust from the bread and cut into irregular cubes of about 3 cm on each side. Bake them till they get a dark brown color so that they are even crispy at the heart. If you have time, let it sit for thirty minutes once roasted. Then break them using a mortar or rolling pin. Season with a little extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of fleur de sel.
Chop the parsley and set aside. Peel the garlic cloves and cut them in half, remove the stems and very finely chop them with a knife or mandoline. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil, anchovies, pepper, well-drained capers and garlic. Be careful not to overheat the oil or the garlic may fry and taste too strong.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil then add the spaghetti. Remove the pasta from the water while it is still very loose and place in the pan with the sauce, sprinkle a little cooking water and start. “Mantecatura” : The sauce will thicken as the pan heats up. Stir for about three minutes. If the sauce seems too watery, keep stirring and turn the flame as high as possible. If, on the contrary, it seems dry, add a little more cooking water. When the spaghetti is bound, grate the lemon zest, then add 4 teaspoons lemon juice, finish with the parsley and bread croutons. Mix everything together one last time and serve.
(1) cooked,Vijay Wolff, ed. Human Humans, 2020.
To you! If you want to submit your own recipe to us, you can send it to us at k.hullot-guiot@liberation.fr, telling us, in three or a hundred words, what it means to you, if it is a family recipe. , a dish you adapted from a cookbook, a recipe you stole from a friend, if it evokes a certain phase of your life…