I don’t know if I’ve always appreciated a home cooked meal. My dad would come home from work every day and cook for us real food. Chicken piccata, cacciatore, etc any day of the week. After he cooked, we would all sit down at the dinner table like some 1950’s family. It wasn’t until I was a teenager did I realize that not every family shares a meal together anymore, so from then on I’ve appreciated it much more.
Something I wanted to do since arriving in Italy was to cook a traditional Abruzzo dish in honor of my Italian heritage. After not a lot of clicks, I found a recipe called spaghetti alla chitarra. This dish is made up of three types of meats, onion, chili pepper, olive oil, red wine, tomatoes, cheese, and of course spaghetti. Nothing in that recipe sounded bad, so I was in.
I wanted to do this dish justice, so I sourced the main ingredients in traditional Italian style by going to several different shops to get my food. The first stop was the cheese shop, where the cheese man portioned me out secco pecorino and powdered it in front of my eyes. The next shop was the butcher. I handed him my ingredients written down in Italian and hoped for the best. He sectioned me off a piece of veil and grounded the in a giant horror-movie-looking machine. Lastly, the pasta shop was the holy grail of it all. Again, I asked for four portions of pasta, and she took giant slabs of pasta and fed it through a pasta guitar.
After I brought all my ingredients home, I was so excited to cook. I got a pot of water boiling for the pasta and a pan going for the sauce. As soon as I started cooking, the air filled with the smell of home. Onions and peppers sautéing in olive oil is the start to any dish my dad makes. I added the meat next, followed by the red wine and tomatoes and simmered for about 15 minutes during which I cooked the pasta. The pasta I was extra careful cooking because I had to baby it. I didn’t want to overcook the main star of the dish.
After it was all cooked, I mixed the pasta with the meat sauce, twirled it into some bowls and topped it with the pecorino cheese. I sat down at our dinner table, toasted with my friend Frankie, and we dug in. It not only tasted amazing, it felt good to spend time and make this meal right. I will for sure make this again, and hopefully will make another traditional Italian meal while I’m abroad.
Italy Adventures 