Italian Fresh Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Confit Cherry Tomatoes and Stracciatella | Spaghetti alla Chitarra Freschi con Pomodorini Confit e Stracciatella
This plate puts three hundred kilometres between its two halves. The pasta is Abruzzese, cut on a wire strung frame that gives a square edged strand with four rough faces instead of the smooth round profile of extruded spaghetti. The cheese is Pugliese, the shredded curd and cream from inside a burrata. Between them sits a tray of cherry tomatoes that has spent an hour and a quarter in a very low oven, coming out half the size and several times as sweet.
Nothing here is difficult and everything is a matter of timing. The tomatoes need long slow heat and no attention. The dough needs a proper rest before it will roll. The pasta needs two minutes in boiling water. The stracciatella needs no cooking at all and is ruined by any, which is why it goes on at the table rather than in the pan. Get the order right and the dish assembles itself in the last four minutes.
Yield: 4 first course servings. Prep: 50 minutes. Dough rest: 30 minutes. Tomato confit: 1 hour 15 minutes. Final cooking: 15 minutes. Total: about 2 hours 35 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Abruzzo for the pasta, Puglia for the cheese.
The Story
The chitarra is a tool before it is a pasta. A rectangular beech frame is strung with steel wires a couple of millimetres apart, a sheet of egg dough is laid across it, and a rolling pin driven over the top pushes the sheet through. The strands fall into the tray below. It appears in Abruzzo in the first half of the nineteenth century, most accounts placing its invention around Chieti and the Teramo hills. Away from Abruzzo the shape travels under other names: tonnarelli in Rome and the Lazio countryside, maccheroni alla chitarra at home.
What the wires produce is not merely a square strand but a porous one. The dough is torn through rather than sliced, so each face is microscopically ragged, and that roughness is why the shape traditionally carries sauces that need something to hold on to: the mutton and pepper ragù of the Abruzzo hills, or simply tomato, oil and pecorino. The dough is rich by Italian standards, close to a whole egg per hundred grams of flour, which gives the strand the strength to survive the wires.
Stracciatella arrives from the other side of the Apennines. It is the filling of burrata, mozzarella curd stretched and torn into threads, stracciare meaning to shred, then stirred through fresh cream. Burrata was created in the countryside around Andria in Puglia in the years after the war, as a way of using up the offcuts of stretched curd, and the filling has since escaped the pouch and is sold alone. Pairing it with Abruzzese pasta is a contemporary move, not a traditional one, and an honest recipe should say so.
Ingredients
For the pasta
Italian 00 flour, 3 1/3 cups (400 g)
Whole eggs, large, 4
Egg yolk, 1
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch
Semolina flour, for dusting the trays
For the confit cherry tomatoes
Ripe cherry tomatoes, halved, 1 1/3 lb (600 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Garlic cloves, thinly sliced, 2
Fresh thyme sprigs, small, 4
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp (2 g), only if the tomatoes are sharp
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For finishing
Fresh stracciatella, well chilled, 9 oz (250 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml), plus a little for the plates
Reserved pasta cooking water, about 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Fresh basil leaves, small, 8 to 12
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Make the egg dough
Mound the flour on a wooden board, hollow out a well and break the eggs and the yolk into it with the oil and the salt. Beat with a fork, drawing flour in from the inner wall until the centre is too thick to whisk, then bring the rest together with a scraper. Knead for 8 to 10 minutes, pushing the dough away with the heel of the hand and folding it back, until it is smooth and springs back slowly under a fingertip. Wrap it and rest it at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Confit the tomatoes
Heat the oven to 275°F (135°C). Halve the tomatoes and lay them cut faces upward on a tray, close together but not touching. Scatter over the garlic, thyme, salt and the sugar if you are using it, then pour the oil over the lot. Roast for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. They are ready when they have shrunk by about a third, the edges have wrinkled and the juices have turned syrupy, but the halves still hold their shape.
Roll the sheets
Divide the rested dough into four and keep three covered. Flatten one, pass it through the widest setting, fold it in three and pass it again, four or five times, to laminate it. Then work down the settings without folding until the sheet is roughly 1/16 in (1.5 mm) thick. That is thicker than you would roll for tagliatelle and it is deliberate: a thin sheet will not fill the gap between the wires and comes off as flat ribbons.
Cut on the chitarra
Dust the sheet lightly, cut it to the length of the frame and lay it squarely across the wires. Run the rolling pin over it with real downward pressure, back and forth, until the strands drop through. Toss the cut pasta at once with semolina, gather it into loose nests and set them on a tray. Without a chitarra, cut the sheet by hand into strands about 1/16 in (2 mm) wide.
Warm the tomato base
Lift the thyme sprigs out and tip the tomatoes into a wide sauté pan with every drop of oil and juice from the tray, which is the sauce. Warm it gently over low heat a couple of minutes before the pasta goes in: the point is to bring it to temperature, not to cook it further. Crush four or five halves against the side of the pan for body and leave the rest whole.
Cook the pasta and finish in the pan
Bring a large pot to a rolling boil and salt it well, about 1 tbsp (18 g) of coarse salt per 4 quarts (4 litres). Shake the excess semolina off the nests and drop them in. Fresh chitarra takes 2 to 3 minutes and the strands rise and float when they are close. Reserve a cup of the water, lift the pasta into the tomato pan with tongs, add the raw oil and toss over low heat for about a minute, adding cooking water a splash at a time until the strands are glossy.
Add the stracciatella off the heat
Take the pan to the table before the cheese goes near it. Stracciatella is stretched curd in cream and stable only while cold; in a hot pan it tightens into strings and the cream splits. Tear it into ragged pieces over the plated pasta, never cut it with a knife, and let the heat of the strands soften it from below. Finish with basil, raw oil and pepper, and serve at once.
Plating
Use wide plates rather than bowls and warm them properly, because the cold cheese has to meet something hot for the contrast to register. Lift the pasta out of the pan with a carving fork or tongs and twist it into a loose nest in the centre of each plate, tall rather than spread flat. Do not tip the pan out and redistribute afterwards; the strands tangle and the nest collapses.
Spoon the confit tomatoes around and into the nest so five or six whole halves are visible, with the syrupy juice drawn around the base. Tear the chilled stracciatella into three or four ragged pieces per plate so it drapes rather than sits in a single dome. Add the basil leaves whole, never chopped, a few drops of oil and a grind of pepper. Nothing is grated over this dish: pecorino or parmesan would flatten the milky sweetness of the cheese, which is the point of the plate.
Professional Technique
The confit is the technique that carries this recipe. Held at 275°F (135°C) for over an hour, the tomato loses water slowly through evaporation rather than violently through boiling, so the sugars and the glutamates concentrate while the cell structure stays largely intact. The same tomatoes at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes would colour on the surface without concentrating inside, and would burst. Low and slow is the difference between a tomato that tastes four times as intense and one that merely tastes cooked.
The second is geometry. Pressing a thick sheet through steel wires tears the dough rather than slicing it, and the strand comes out with four torn, absorbent faces. That surface is what allows a sauce this loose, essentially seasoned oil and tomato juice, to cling at all, and it is why the pasta sheds starch readily in the last minute so the cooking water emulsifies with the oil. Roll the sheet too thin and you lose both the square section and the grip.
The third is knowing when not to cook. Stracciatella is fresh curd suspended in cream, and above roughly 122°F (50°C) the casein network contracts, the strands turn elastic and the cream weeps out. Every other component is hot; the cheese is the one element deliberately held cold, and the pleasure of the dish comes from that gap in temperature closing slowly on the plate.
Texture and Moisture Control
Fresh egg pasta is far less forgiving than dried. It is already hydrated, so it goes from firm to soft in under a minute and there is no wide al dente window to aim at. Start testing at 90 seconds, taste rather than trust the clock, and take it out while the strand still has a chew at the core. It keeps cooking in the pan with the tomatoes and keeps softening on a warm plate, and both have to be accounted for before it leaves the water.
The sauce is a loose one and it lives or dies by the cooking water. Confit tomatoes give up very little liquid compared with a fresh tomato sauce, so the pan looks dry when the pasta goes in. Add the starchy water a splash at a time while tossing and stop the moment the strands take on a sheen and the sauce clings rather than runs. Too much and the tomato thins out to nothing; too little and the pasta stands dry within a minute.
Temperature is the last piece. Plates hot, pasta hot, tomatoes warm, cheese cold. Take the stracciatella from the refrigerator only when the pasta is already in the water and tear it straight over the plate. Left on a counter it goes slack, and slack stracciatella slumps into the sauce and turns the plate into one creamy mass instead of three distinct things eaten together.
Professional Mise en Place
The two long jobs, the dough and the tomatoes, both happen well before service and both improve for waiting. What is left at the end is four minutes of work.
Equipment and tools
Chitarra frame, or a sharp knife
Pasta machine with adjustable rollers and a wooden board
Shallow baking tray large enough to hold the tomatoes in one layer
Wide sauté pan for finishing the pasta, tongs or a carving fork
Trays dusted with semolina for the cut nests
Prepared ahead
Egg dough kneaded and rested, up to 24 hours ahead wrapped and refrigerated
Confit tomatoes in their oil, up to 5 days ahead, better after a day
Pasta rolled and cut, up to 2 hours ahead on semolina dusted trays
Basil picked and kept in a damp cloth, on the day
Stracciatella bought the same day and left unopened in the refrigerator
Service setup
Large pot at a rolling boil, salted at 1 tbsp (18 g) per 4 quarts (4 litres)
Tomatoes and their oil warming in the sauté pan over low heat
Ladle or cup ready to lift out the starchy cooking water
Plates warm, olive oil, pepper mill and basil within reach
Stracciatella left cold until the pasta is in the water
Chef Tips
Buy the tomatoes for sweetness rather than size. Datterino, piccadilly or a good vine cherry all confit well; a watery tomato bred for shelf life reduces to very little and tastes of nothing. If yours are sharp, the half teaspoon of sugar corrects them, but taste one raw first.
Roll the sheet thicker than instinct suggests. Most cooks used to tagliatelle go two settings too far, and a thin sheet drapes over the wires and comes off as flat tape. You want enough body to be pushed down between them, around 1/16 in (1.5 mm), which on most machines is the third or fourth setting from the widest.
Let the confit tomatoes sit overnight if you can. The oil takes on their sweetness and the garlic and thyme go on infusing after the tray leaves the oven, so the sauce is noticeably rounder the next day. Keep them covered by their oil and bring them to room temperature before warming.
Buy the stracciatella on the day you cook. It has a working life of about 48 hours and the difference between fresh and three days old is not subtle: the cream turns faintly sour and the threads lose their softness. If you cannot get it, the torn inside of a whole burrata is the same thing.
Common Mistakes
Roasting the tomatoes hot and fast. Twenty minutes at a high temperature browns the outside without concentrating the inside, and the halves burst instead of shrinking. The hour and a quarter at 275°F (135°C) cannot be shortcut.
Rolling the pasta sheet too thin. A thin sheet cannot be pushed down between the wires and comes off the chitarra as flat ribbons with none of the square section or rough surface the shape exists for. Stop around 1/16 in (1.5 mm).
Putting the stracciatella in the pan. Above about 122°F (50°C) the curd contracts into rubbery strings and the cream splits. It belongs on the plate, torn over the hot pasta at the last second, and it needs no cooking of any kind.
Crushing all the tomatoes into a sauce. Break up four or five halves for body and leave the rest whole, or you lose the burst of concentrated sweetness that is the reason for confiting them.
Cutting the cheese instead of tearing it. A knife gives clean geometric pieces that sit on the pasta like a garnish. Tearing gives ragged edges that catch the sauce and melt unevenly, which is what stracciatella is supposed to do.
Wine Pairing
Offida Pecorino DOCG: From the Marche, just north of Abruzzo, and the most complete answer to this plate. Pecorino as a grape gives a broad, almost waxy white with real weight behind a firm acidity, plus a herbal note of sage and aniseed that finds the thyme in the tomato oil. The body stands up to the cream in the stracciatella and the acidity keeps the tomato from tasting jammy.
Locorotondo DOC: The white of the Valle d'Itria, made a short drive from where the stracciatella is produced, and a pairing built on proximity rather than theory. Verdeca and Bianco d'Alessano give a pale, delicate wine with white flowers, green almond and a light bitter edge, deliberately quiet, which suits a dish whose loudest element is a slow roasted tomato.
Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC: A serious dry rosato from Montepulciano grapes, deep cherry in colour and far more structured than its shade suggests. It has red fruit to meet the tomato on its own ground and enough tannic grip to cut the milk fat of the cheese, which most whites cannot do. Serve it at 54°F (12°C). This is the Abruzzese bottle for an Abruzzese pasta.
Martina Franca DOC: A close neighbour of Locorotondo with a firmer spine, dry, light in alcohol and finishing on a bitter almond note that sits well beside basil. Its restraint works when the tomatoes have come out especially sweet, since it adds no fruit of its own and simply lifts the palate between mouthfuls of cream and oil.
Lugana DOC: Turbiana grown on the clay south of Lake Garda, the choice if you want texture rather than sharpness. A rounder white with stone fruit, a faint saline finish and a gentle bitterness, and that roundness mirrors the stracciatella instead of fighting it. A bottle with a year or two of age suits the confit tomato better than a young one.
Storage & Reheating
The components keep far better than the finished plate, so store them apart. Confit tomatoes last 5 days refrigerated as long as they stay covered by their oil, and are better on day two than on day one. Uncooked cut pasta holds on a semolina dusted tray for about 2 hours at room temperature, or can be dried on a rack and kept in a tin for a week. Stracciatella should be eaten within 48 hours of being made.
Assembled leftovers are a compromise at best. Refrigerate them for no more than 24 hours and reheat gently in a pan with a splash of water and a little oil until just warm through. The cheese will have melted into the sauce and will not come back, so treat the reheated plate as a different, creamier dish. Never use a microwave, which toughens fresh egg pasta.
The cut pasta is the only component worth freezing: freeze the nests solid on a tray, bag them and cook from frozen, adding about 30 seconds. Confit tomatoes freeze in their oil for 2 months but soften on thawing. Stracciatella must never be frozen; it separates completely and cannot be brought back.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 first course portions:
Calories: 720 kcal
Total Fat: 34 g
Saturated Fat: 13 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 19 g
Cholesterol: 245 mg
Sodium: 520 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 78 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 7 g
Added Sugars: 0.5 g
Protein: 26 g
Lactose: 3 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, vitamin A, vitamin C, lycopene, riboflavin, selenium, phosphorus
These figures are estimates. Fat and cholesterol depend heavily on the richness of the stracciatella, which varies between producers, and on how much of the confit oil ends up in the pan rather than in the tray.
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