Spaghetti with tomato sauce is an iconic dish, on which apparently everything has already been said. It actually allows us to reflect on the profound transformation of Italian traditional cooking over the 20th century when Italy had a big internal migration from South to North. There's a great restaurant in Milan where North meets South through a simple gesture: adding butter to your tomato sauce spaghetti – exactly how they did (and still do) in Milan and throughout northern Italy. This is how the chefs Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani serve tomato spaghetti at the famous Milanese restaurant Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia.
"We started from our own personal memory and from the conviction that every dish takes on its own value because of the ties that people weave through food, on a family and social level, to offer an updated version our memory and project it into the future, enriching it with new meanings", say the chefs Pisani and Negrini. Presented during Identità di Pasta 2019 edition, their special Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce dish is made of a pasta produced in Trentino with onion and butter of the Alps included in the sauce.
Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce at Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia
Serves 4
Ingredients:
12 oz | 350 gr spaghetti (Valentino Monograno Felicetti)
1 ¾ cup | 400 ml water
pinch | 5 gr salt
1/8 cup | 40 gr alpine butter
small | 40 gr white onion
⅓ cup | 70 gr handmade tomato paste "u strattu" from Sicily
⅔ | 100 gr of Parmigiano Reggiano 24 months
Method:
First, throw the pasta in boiling salted water and cook for 12 minutes.
While the pasta is cooking, finely chop the onion and gently fry it in a saucepan with butter for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and water, cook for 5 minutes over moderate heat, season with salt and blend with an immersion blender.
Drain the pasta, place in the plates, pour the sauce on each portion, finish with Grana Padano cheese and serve.