Spaghetti alla chitarra recipe: Abruzzo's wired pasta
Fresh egg pasta pressed through a strung wooden frame comes out square-cut, not flat, so it grips a tomato and veal sauce on four sides instead of two.
Spaghetti alla chitarra gets its name from the stringed wooden frame that cuts it: fresh egg pasta pressed through tensioned wires into square-edged strands, a method unique to Abruzzo and the reason this pasta holds sauce differently from anything rolled and cut by machine.
The chitarra, literally "guitar," dates to 19th-century Teramo, where cooks strung steel wires across a wooden frame to cut pasta sheets without a rolling cutter. The square cross-section, instead of the flat ribbon a knife or machine produces, grips sauce on four sides rather than two, which is why the dish is traditionally paired with pallottine, walnut-sized veal and pork meatballs simmered in a light tomato sauce rather than anything cream-based.
Ingredients
The wires cut what a knife can't: a square edge that holds sauce on four sides instead of two.
- 400g '00' flour, plus extra for dusting
- 4 large eggs
- Pinch of fine salt
- 200g minced veal
- 200g minced pork
- 50g breadcrumbs, soaked in a little milk
- 1 egg
- 40g grated pecorino, plus extra to serve
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- Small bunch parsley, chopped
- Sunflower oil, for frying
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 400g tinned San Marzano tomatoes
Method
- Mound the flour, make a well, crack in the eggs and salt, and work into a smooth dough by hand for about 10 minutes, kneading until it springs back; the long knead develops the gluten that lets the chitarra's wires cut clean strands instead of tearing them.
- Wrap the dough and rest it for 30 minutes so the gluten relaxes and the sheet doesn't shrink back when rolled.
- Roll the dough into sheets just under the width of the chitarra frame and about 2mm thick, lay each sheet over the wires and press through with a rolling pin, so the strands fall through in one motion rather than needing to be separated by hand.
- Mix the veal, pork, soaked breadcrumbs, egg, pecorino, garlic and parsley, roll into walnut-sized balls, and fry in batches until browned all over, which seals the meatballs before they finish cooking in the sauce.
- Soften the onion in the olive oil, add the tomatoes, crush them in the pan, and simmer for 20 minutes before adding the browned pallottine to finish cooking through in the sauce for a further 10 minutes.
- Cook the chitarra strands in well-salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes; fresh egg pasta this thick cooks fast, and the salted water is the only seasoning the strands get before the sauce.
- Toss the drained pasta through the sauce and meatballs, and serve with extra grated pecorino at the table.
No chitarra at home?
A rolling pin and a sharp knife get close: roll the dough slightly thicker than usual, around 3mm, and cut it into square strands by hand rather than thin ribbons, which keeps the sauce-holding texture the wires are built for.
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, the region's everyday red, cuts through the tomato and pork fat better than anything lighter, and is the wine the dish grew up next to.
Can I use dried spaghetti instead? You can, but the square-cut starch surface is what makes the sauce cling, so a dried round spaghetti will taste noticeably thinner with the same sauce. For a machine-rolled alternative with the same hand-made spirit, our tagliatelle al ragù from Bologna uses the same egg-dough technique with a different cut.
