Bucatini with Raw Tomato Sauce from Sicily | Recipe

LUCIA & PINO’S BUCATINI ALLA TRAPANESE

Prep: 1 – 1 +1/2 hour  |  Servings: 4  |  Dried pasta alternative:  360g Bucatini

The flour mill Mulino Fiaccati di Roccapalumba feels hidden and secret, perched on the side of a tumbling riverbed, deep down in a boulder-strewn ravine and surrounded by prickly pears in the fields above. It’s hard to imagine that once, in the days before machinery, the wheat fields were full of farmworkers who would come to eat their lunch at the mill. This is the region of Sicily where the commercial production of dried pasta was first noted in the 12th century.

These days, Pino is the custodian of the mill and he showed us a wonderful wooden contraption used to extrude pasta dough through a bronze die to form bucatini (spaghetti with a hole through the middle). If you are a pasta fan you can do the same by buying a hand-operated torchio or an attachment for your food mixer. The pasta needs durum wheat flour, the slightly gritty kind called semola in Italian, and water. To stop it from sticking as it goes through the extruder, the dough needs to be a little drier than when you roll it out by hand. You should allow 40g of water (or 40 ml/2½ tablespoons, but weighing it is more accurate) for every 100g (2/3 cup) of flour. In other words, 40% hydration. This will make a stiff dough. Or, buy a packet of bucatini; look for good quality pasta to make the most of this very simple recipe.

Pino and Lucia’s recipe is a Sicilian summer in a bowl. Sunshine is one of the ingredients you will need for this dish; the kind that shimmers as the cicadas’ strumming makes your eardrums feel they are being electrocuted. Pick basil that has also been sun-blasted, as this brings out the clove fragrance of the herb. And, of course, choose good-quality tomatoes; look out for fleshy Italian varieties like Roma, San Marzano and Pachino.

Ingredients

FOR THE PASTA

• 400g (31/3 cups) semola durum
• wheat flour
• 160g (2/3 cup) warm water
• 1g (¼ teaspoon) fine salt

FOR THE SAUCE

• 1kg whole, very ripe tomatoes;
• after prep this becomes about 500g
• 1-2 fresh large garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 20 basil leaves, hand shredded
• 80-120g pecorino, grated

Method

To make the pasta dough, combine the flour, water, and salt in a bowl. Once you have a ball of dough, knead it for 5-8 minutes on a board until it is smooth and bouncy and no longer breaks apart. This is a good workout! Resting the dough isn’t necessary. Run it through your extrusion machine using your bucatini die, cutting off 20-cm lengths. Place them on a mesh rack or floured baking sheet and spread out in a single layer, until you are ready to cook them.

Now for the sauce. Cut a cross in the tip of every tomato (i.e. the opposite end from the stem, which should be removed if present) with a sharp knife. Bring a saucepan full of water to the boil and blanch the tomatoes for 30 seconds. Transfer the fruit to a bowl filled with cold water to stop the cooking. Over a bowl, peel off the skin from each tomato, halve and scoop out the seeds. Keep the flesh and the juice.

Cut the tomatoes into 1-cm cubes and place them in a heatproof pan with the juice. Turn the garlic into mush by chopping it finely with the salt. Stir it into the tomatoes with the olive oil and shredded basil leaves. Place the pan of mixed ingredients in direct hot sun for 30 minutes. And if your sun isn’t hot enough? Warm (don’t bake) the toms in a preheated oven at 50°C for 20-30 minutes. This will help develop the flavours.

While the tomato mixture is warming up, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Time the pasta cooking so that it is ready when the sauce is. This means following the instructions on the pasta packet, or allowing 5 minutes of cooking time for the fresh pasta before nibbling a strand every couple of minutes until you are satisfied the strands are al dente. Drain the bucatini very well and combine with your sauce and the pecorino. Serve immediately.