Tuesday 21 July 2015

Oh- Crumbs!

Spaghetti con Acciughe, Mollica, Parmigiano & Zucchero
Spaghetti with Sugared Bread Crumbs, Anchovies & Parmesan

 

Are you ready for a little surprise? Ready to tickle and tantalize your taste buds and to dare to try something different and ultimately, amazingly delicious? Well, good! Because once you have tried it, you will be as excited about it as I am!

This crazy little dish has immediately become one of my all-time favorite dishes ever this evening... Oh yes! It is really that good!


 

Anchovies, sugar, Parmesan cheese, tomatoes... What madness is this?!? It is traditional Sicilian madness! That's what it is!

This is a dish from Palermo and the surrounding regions, which is as mind-blowingly delicious as it is weird sounding... Combining sweet and savory ingredients in a way that is so simple and quintessentially Sicilian that it will make you immediately fall in love with the taste of the South!


 

As with most Sicilian dishes, this takes neither many ingredients, nor does it take much time... My two favorite attributes of what I consider to be a good meal!

To make 1 nice plate of pasta this evening, I needed the spaghetti of course, haha, but otherwise just 2-3 tablespoons of bread crumbs, a little fresh parsley, either 1/2 of a small onion, or a spring onion as I chose to use (they are so handy for us singletons!), 2-3 anchovies, 4-5 cherry tomatoes, 1 teaspoon of sugar, a little Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and a little olive oil.

Oh- And if you happen to think this sounds a little too strange for comfort... A sense of adventure as well!



Do you remember the days when you used to consider sweet and sour pork from the Chinese takeaway to be reeeeally exotic? How silly do you find that now? Open your mind, open your mouth and open your arms to embrace something new, rather than to keep in doing the same old same old thing every day... You know you want to! And I promise you will enjoy it!

 

Whilst the water boils for your pasta, begin to make the crispy bread crumbs, by cutting the anchovies into small pieces and frying them in a little olive oil. Once they are sizzling, add the bread crumbs, a little chopped parsley, a little grated Parmesan and a little pepper.

 

Whilst the water boils for your pasta, begin to make the crispy bread crumbs, by cutting the anchovies into small pieces and frying them in a little olive oil. Once they are sizzling, add the bread crumbs, a little chopped parsley, a little grated Parmesan and a little pepper.

 

After just 3-4 minutes, your bread crumbs will look as beautiful as this... And they will smell so incredible that you will have to taste them. When you do, please don't faint at how delicious they are as you will still have a little work to do!

Set the crumbs to one side to cool, give your frying pan a quick rinse and pop the spaghetti into the pot to boil... Then pop the frying pan back onto the stove top and get it hot and ready for the next step...


 

In a good dash of olive oil, fry the diced cherry tomatoes and thinly sliced onion, with a little salt and pepper, until they are nice and soft, for around 4-5 minutes at the most.

 
 
After the spaghetti has boiled for 4-5 minutes, add it to the frying pan, with plenty of the water it has cooked in and continue cooking for a further 4-5 minutes- surely you know my procedure by now!?!

 

Once all of the water has been absorbed, the pasta will be ready, al-dente and although it looks a little bit bland right now, just see what it looks like when we have added those incredibly crispy, golden breadcrumbs!

 

Add a generous amount of bread crumbs, a little more parsley and cheese and of course, that all-important last grind of pepper!

 

Serve it, stir it and enjoy it! But in any case, if you have the chance, make more of it and share it!

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