Sicilian Cart Driver's Spaghetti | Spaghetti alla Carrettiera Siciliana

Sep 22

11 min read

Spaghetti alla Carrettiera Siciliana (Sicilian Cart Driver's Spaghetti)

Spaghetti alla carrettiera is the dish Sicilian cart drivers made at the side of the road, and everything about it follows from that. There is no cooking of a sauce. Raw garlic, olive oil, chilli, parsley, grated ripe tomato and hard pecorino are pounded or chopped cold, and the only heat in the recipe is the pasta itself and the water it carried out of the pot.

That makes it one of the fastest primi in the Italian repertoire and one of the least forgiving. With no pan, no reduction and no browning, there is nowhere for a mediocre ingredient to hide: a dull tomato stays dull, tired garlic turns acrid, and cheap oil is the only thing anyone will taste.

The technique that matters is the emulsion. Olive oil and starchy pasta water do not combine on their own, and a carrettiera assembled carelessly arrives as oily spaghetti in a puddle. Done properly, off the heat and with the right water, the same ingredients bind into a glossy sauce that clings to every strand.

Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 20 minutes. Cook: 10 minutes. Total: about 30 minutes. Difficulty: easy to intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Sicily, the inland roads between Catania and Ragusa.

The Story

The carrettieri were the men who moved Sicily before the roads were paved. From the eighteenth century until well after the Second World War they hauled wheat, wine, citrus, sulphur and salt across the island in painted wooden carts, and the journey from the Catania plain up to Enna took days. They slept beside the cart and cooked beside it, and what they carried had to survive August heat without refrigeration: dried pasta, a flask of oil, garlic, dried chilli, a wedge of hard pecorino.

Every element of the recipe follows from that list. Raw garlic keeps for months where a soffritto keeps for nothing. Chilli was both flavour and preservative. Pecorino, aged and dry, travelled where fresh cheese could not. Tomato was added in summer, when it could be picked along the way, and left out the rest of the year. The dish exists in its exact form because that is what fitted in a cart.

This is why the Sicilian carrettiera and the Roman one share a name and nothing else. The Roman version is a cooked sauce with tuna and mushrooms, invented much later. The Sicilian one, still made around Catania, Ragusa and Caltagirone, remains a raw dressing, and in the strictest versions the garlic and parsley are crushed in a mortar.

Ingredients

For the raw sauce

Ripe plum or ox heart tomatoes, very ripe, 1 lb (450 g)
Garlic cloves, peeled and green germ removed, 3
Extra virgin olive oil, Sicilian if possible, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Flat leaf parsley, leaves only, 1 cup loosely packed (20 g)
Dried Sicilian chilli, crumbled, 1, or crushed red pepper flakes, 1/2 tsp (1 g)
Pecorino Siciliano, finely grated, 1/2 cup (50 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the pasta

Dried durum wheat spaghetti, bronze cut, 14 oz (400 g)
Water, 5 quarts (4.7 L)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tbsp (35 g)

For finishing

Toasted breadcrumbs, mollica atturrata, 1/4 cup (30 g), optional
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml), raw
Pecorino Siciliano, grated, 2 tbsp (12 g), at the table
Reserved pasta cooking water, about 1 cup (240 ml)

Preparation

Step 1

Grate the tomatoes rather than chopping them. Halve them across the equator and rub the cut face against the large holes of a box grater held over a bowl, until only the flat skin is left in your hand. You get pulp and juice with no skin, which is how it is done across eastern Sicily. Salt the pulp lightly and let it drain in a sieve for 10 minutes, keeping the juice in case the dish needs loosening later.

Step 2

Treat the garlic so it is raw but not violent. Split each clove lengthways and lift out the pale green germ at the centre, which carries most of the harshness and all of the aftertaste. Then either pound the cloves to a paste in a mortar with a pinch of salt, the traditional way, or chop them very finely and crush them against the board with the flat of the knife. Never use a garlic press, which shears the cells and releases a sulphurous bitterness.

Step 3

Build the raw dressing. In a wide bowl large enough to hold the finished pasta, combine the garlic paste, the crumbled chilli, the salt and the olive oil, and let them stand for at least 15 minutes. The oil draws out the garlic and chilli aromatics and softens both, so the sauce tastes integrated rather than raw. Stir in the drained tomato pulp and a grinding of black pepper, and leave the bowl at room temperature.

Step 4

Chop the parsley last. Parsley loses its volatile oils within minutes of being cut, so it goes on the board only once the water is at a rolling boil. Use leaves only, keep the knife sharp, and chop with a rocking motion rather than working the pile over and over. Fold it into the bowl just before the pasta goes in.

Step 5

Salt the water properly and cook the spaghetti. Bring 5 quarts (4.7 L) to a rolling boil and add 2 tablespoons (35 g) of coarse salt, roughly 7 g per litre. This is the only salt the pasta itself will receive and the raw sauce is barely seasoned, so underdoing it here cannot be corrected later. Add the spaghetti, stir for the first 30 seconds, and set a timer for 2 minutes less than the packet says.

Step 6

Judge the point of cooking by bite, not by the clock. Start tasting a strand at the 2 minute mark. You want it firm to the tooth with a thin pale line still visible at the centre when you bite through, because it keeps softening while you toss it. Bronze cut spaghetti absorbs water faster, so it moves past al dente more quickly than smooth extruded pasta.

Step 7

Reserve the water and add the cheese off the heat. Dip a mug into the pot and take out about 1 cup (240 ml) of the cloudy water before draining. Stir the grated pecorino into the raw sauce with 3 tablespoons of that water, working it with a fork until it is a loose paste with no lumps. Doing this away from the heat is what stops the cheese seizing into strings, the commonest failure in every raw Sicilian dressing.

Step 8

Toss the pasta into the sauce, not the sauce onto the pasta. Drain the spaghetti while it is still dripping and tip it straight into the bowl. Toss hard and continuously for about 45 seconds, lifting the strands high with tongs, and add pasta water a tablespoon at a time until the sauce turns from oily and separate to glossy and clinging. Finish with the raw tablespoon of oil and the breadcrumbs, and serve at once.

Plating

Use warm shallow bowls, around 120°F (50°C). A cold bowl chills the olive oil in seconds and thickens it, and the emulsion you worked for breaks in front of the guest. Warm them under hot water and dry them, or leave them near the pot while it comes to the boil.

Serve the spaghetti twirled rather than piled. Lift a portion with tongs, set it into a ladle or against the curve of the bowl and turn it into a nest so the strands stay long and aligned, then slide it into the centre. Long pasta dropped flat eats badly, since the strands mat together and the sauce pools underneath instead of coating.

Spoon any sauce left in the bowl over the top, scatter a little parsley and the toasted breadcrumbs, and add a thin thread of raw olive oil. Put the extra pecorino and the chilli on the table and let people finish their own plate. This was road food and it keeps that character.

Professional Technique

The whole dish is one technique, the cold emulsion, and it works because of what is dissolved in pasta water. Dried durum spaghetti sheds amylose and amylopectin as it cooks, and those starch molecules act as an emulsifier, holding olive oil in suspension as fine droplets instead of letting it separate. Water from a pot that was too large or topped up during cooking is nearly starch free and binds nothing.

Mechanical energy does the rest. Oil and water only emulsify if they are agitated hard while both are warm, so the tossing is vigorous and continuous for the full 45 seconds, with the strands lifted high rather than stirred in place. Add the water gradually as well: too much at once floods the bowl and the emulsion never forms.

The second technique is temperature control over the pecorino. Sheep milk protein tightens and clumps the moment it meets water above about 175°F (80°C). Adding the cheese to the cold raw sauce with a few tablespoons of water, well before the pasta arrives, disperses the protein while everything is still cool. By the time the hot spaghetti lands the cheese is already in suspension and cannot seize.

Texture and Moisture Control

There are only two textures to control and both are decided in the last two minutes. The pasta must be firm to the bite with a thin pale core when it leaves the pot, because it keeps cooking in the residual heat of the sauce and the bowl for another minute at least. Bronze cut spaghetti is the right choice: its rough die gives a matt, porous surface that grips an oil and starch emulsion far better than a teflon extruded pasta.

The sauce has to be wet enough to coat and dry enough to cling, and the difference is a few tablespoons of water. Drain the pasta dripping rather than bone dry, add water by the spoonful, and read the bowl rather than a measurement: the sauce should slide slowly down a lifted strand and leave it coated, not run off it.

Time is the enemy after that. A carrettiera holds its texture for about three minutes: the pasta keeps absorbing, the emulsion drops the oil, and the raw garlic sharpens as the dish stands. Nothing here can be plated in advance, so toss only when everyone is seated, and if it tightens while the last bowl is filled, a spoonful of the reserved tomato juice brings it back.

Professional Mise en Place

This is a ten minute dish with a forty five second finish, so every component is prepared cold and waiting before the pasta water boils.

Equipment and tools

Large pot, about 5 quarts (4.7 L), and long tongs
Box grater for the tomatoes and a fine grater for the pecorino
Mortar and pestle for the garlic, or a sharp knife and a board
Wide bowl big enough to toss 4 portions of spaghetti in
Mug or ladle set beside the pot to reserve cooking water

Prepared ahead

Garlic peeled and degermed, up to 4 hours ahead, kept covered in oil
Tomatoes grated and drained, up to 2 hours ahead at room temperature
Pecorino grated fine, on the day, kept covered so it does not dry
Breadcrumbs toasted in olive oil until deep gold, up to 3 days ahead in a sealed jar

Service setup

Oil, garlic and chilli combined at least 15 minutes before service
Parsley chopped only once the water is boiling
Bowls warmed and dried, standing beside the pot
Reserved pasta water within reach before draining, never after

Chef Tips

Buy the best olive oil you can and use it raw. In a dish with no cooked element the oil is not a medium, it is the main flavour, and a fruity Sicilian oil with a peppery finish carries the garlic and chilli in a way no neutral blend will.

If the tomatoes are out of season, leave them out rather than using tinned ones. The dish existed for most of the year without tomato, and that winter version, garlic, oil, chilli, parsley and pecorino alone, is the original. Tinned tomato brings a cooked flavour into a raw sauce and reads immediately as wrong.

Let the garlic sit in the oil for fifteen minutes and taste it before the pasta goes in. Raw garlic varies enormously between heads and seasons, and the gap between three assertive cloves and three aggressive ones is the whole balance of the plate. If it stings the tongue, add another tablespoon of oil rather than more cheese.

Toast the breadcrumbs in olive oil until deep gold and let them cool before they go near the pasta. Mollica atturrata is the Sicilian answer to grated cheese on a poor table, but crumbs added warm or soft turn to paste in the sauce within seconds.

Common Mistakes

Adding the pecorino to hot pasta. Sheep milk protein clumps on contact with heat above about 175°F (80°C), and no amount of stirring separates it afterwards. Disperse the cheese in the cold sauce with a little pasta water first, then bring the pasta to it.

Throwing away the pasta water. Without starch there is no emulsion, and the dish arrives as oil and spaghetti in the same bowl. Take out a cup before draining, every time, and use a pot of the size given rather than the largest one you own.

Cooking or browning the garlic. Carrettiera has no cooked element. Frying the garlic turns it sweet and nutty, a good flavour in a different dish, and destroys the sharp raw profile this one is built on.

Leaving the green germ in the garlic. That central shoot carries the bitterness and the long aftertaste people blame on raw garlic in general. Split every clove and lift it out.

Using pre grated cheese. Industrial grated pecorino contains anticaking starch and cellulose that block a smooth emulsion and leave a chalky texture. Grate a block finely, as close to service as you can.

Wine Pairing

Etna Bianco DOC: Carricante from the volcanic slopes of Etna, and the most precise match on the list. Its very high acidity and unmistakable flinty, saline character cut straight through the raw olive oil, while the citrus and green apple fruit refresh the palate between mouthfuls of garlic. There is no residual sugar to clash with the chilli and no oak to muddy a dish this direct.

Grillo Sicilia DOC: The workhorse white of western Sicily and the easy everyday choice. A well made unoaked Grillo has citrus, white peach and a faintly herbal note that echoes the raw parsley, plus enough body to stand up to salty pecorino. Serve it around 46°F (8°C), which keeps the alcohol from amplifying the chilli.

Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG: The only DOCG in Sicily, from Ragusa, which is carrettiera country itself. Nero d'Avola and Frappato give bright red cherry fruit, light tannin and fresh acidity, and served cool at about 57°F (14°C) it handles the tomato with ease. Frappato's floral lift is what makes it work against raw garlic where a heavier red would not.

Etna Rosso DOC: Nerello Mascalese, pale and high in acid, with fine tannin and a smoky mineral edge from the volcanic soil. It behaves more like a northern red than a southern one, which is why it suits a dish with no fat beyond olive oil. The savoury, slightly bitter finish picks up the toasted breadcrumbs and the pecorino.

Faro DOC: A rare bottling from the hills above Messina, built mainly on Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio. It is lighter and more perfumed than most Sicilian reds, with red berry fruit, dried herbs and a firm acidic spine that keeps the raw tomato from tasting flat. Worth decanting for twenty minutes before it meets the plate.

Storage & Reheating

The dressed pasta does not keep. The emulsion breaks within the hour, the spaghetti goes on absorbing until it is soft, and the raw garlic grows sharper and slightly metallic overnight. Make only what will be eaten, which is easy since the dish takes ten minutes from boiling water.

The raw sauce stores well on its own. Without the cheese and the parsley it keeps in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, under a thin film of olive oil to slow oxidation. Bring it fully back to room temperature before use, at least 30 minutes, because cold oil will not emulsify, and add the pecorino and the freshly chopped parsley only at the moment of tossing.

If you do have dressed leftovers, refrigerate them within an hour and eat them within 24 hours. Reheat in a wide pan over low heat with two tablespoons of water per portion, never in a microwave, which splits the oil out completely. Do not freeze this dish at any stage. The better option is a frittata di spaghetti: bind the cold pasta with two beaten eggs and extra pecorino and fry it slowly on both sides until crisp.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 servings:

Calories: 690 kcal
Total Fat: 33 g
Saturated Fat: 7 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 25 g
Cholesterol: 18 mg
Sodium: 720 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 79 g
Fiber: 5 g
Total Sugars: 6 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 21 g
Lactose: 0.2 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin C, vitamin K, lycopene, calcium, iron, selenium, manganese