When she’s feeling nostalgic, Silvia Barban, chef at Brooklyn’s restaurant LaRina Pastificio e Vino, likes to make homemade pasta. It reminds her of Italy, and of her grandmother, who taught her to cook when she was a child.
Spaghetti alla Chitarra are made using a special tool, literally called "the guitar”, a rectangular wooden frame with wires. The wires cut the pasta dough into square noodles, and the unusual shape is particularly good for capturing the sauce.
The spaghetti alla chitarra are originally from Abruzzo, a small region in central Italy, and they can be cooked with any sauce. Silvia Barban’s take on the old-school dish is, as anything she likes to cook, strictly traditional, with a creative twist that appeals to modern taste buds.
Spaghetti alla Chitarra from scratch with burrata cheese, colatura, and basil by Chef Silvia Barban
Ingredients for 6
For the pasta:
400g flour (better if it is stone-ground like Molini del ponte )
200g durum flour
5 eggs
1⁄2 cup blended Calabrian chilies
For the sauce:
2 cans of Mutti finely chopped tomatoes
1⁄2 cup Evoo olive oil
1 small red onion
2 garlic cloves
1 bunch of basil
4 tbsp of colatura di alici
black pepper
2 cups of *stracciatella di burrata*
Micro basil or opan basil
Salt
What you need:
Rolling pin
Chitarra utensils
Pasta Preparation:
Mix the two flours on a table, and pile it together in the shape of a small volcano, with a hole in the center. Crack the eggs inside the hole.
Beat the eggs with a fork, then add the calabrian chili puree. When the eggs and the calabrian chilies are emulsified, start to incorporate the flour with the tips of a fork, little by little.
When you can’t mix the dough anymore with the fork, start to use your hands to knead the dough.
Fold it until it’s smooth and uniform. Make sure the dough doesn’t stick to your hands. If the dough sticks to your hands, it either needs more flour, or it’s too dry and it needs water.
Let it rest on the table. Cover with a wet towel or with plastic wrap and let sit for roughly 40 minutes.
Salsa di Pomodoro:
While you wait for the dough to rest, cut the red onion in big slices 1 inch thick, and put them in a pan with the extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and a few leaves of basil.
Let it cook slowly without browning, then add the Mutti passata and let it cook for about 30 minutes while stirring.
Add the colatura di alici, and the crushed black pepper and salt. Keep in mind that the colatura di alici is salty already, and very umami.
When the sauce is ready, remove the onion and the garlic. You can chop them and use them for another recipe.
Put a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil.
Once the pasta dough has rested enough, roll it our with a rolling pin about a half-inch thick and wide as the chitarra itself.
Put some flour on both sides of the chitarra, and roll it out until the dough goes through the chitarra twing.
Once the spaghetti are ready, add some extra flour to keep them separate .
Salt the boiling water and add the spaghetti.
Cook them for one minute, drain them and add them to the sauce.
Let the spaghetti cook in the sauce for another minute with the sauce, then stir them with a tong.
Add some more colatura di alici to taste.
Serve the spaghetti with stracciatella di burrata, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and opal basil on top.