Tonnarelli with Anchovy Tomato Butter Sauce
Butter, anchovy and tomatoes. That’s all it takes to make this obscenely delicious sauce. I call it my late night pasta - it just hits different late night when hunger strikes. Anchovy brings salty umami flavour and is absolutely key in this dish. You can of course omit them from the recipe if anchovy isn’t your thing, but they do really add a little something to this sauce.
This sauce works with any shape, but I love pairing it with a long spaghetti type pasta. Tonnarelli is a spaghetti-like egg pasta with square edges, often called spaghetti alla chitarra, due to the special tool used to cut it which resembles a guitar. This recipe doesn’t require a chitarra, but rather utilises a more common pasta cutter found with most pasta machines. Simply roll the dough much thicker than you would usually and pass it through a tagliolini cutter to achieve a squared spaghetti shape.
Tonnarelli with Anchovy Tomato Butter Sauce
Serves four
Ingredients
Tonnarelli
300g pasta flour tipo “00”
165g eggs (Approx 2 whole and 2 yolks)
Anchovy tomato butter sauce
100g unsalted butter
4-5 anchovy fillets
3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
400g baby romas or cherry tomatoes, halved
Burrata to serve
Method
Tonnarelli
Place the flour in a mound on your work surface and create a well in the centre. Add the eggs to the well then whisk to a thick custard consistency, slowly incorporating a bit of flour.
Switch to a bench scraper and start to flip the flour from the outer edge over and onto the eggs, using a cutting motion to then mix it in. Continue to do this around all sides until you have a shaggy dough.
Knead for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic, and not sticky at all. If at first you feel that the dough is too wet or dry, knead it for a few minutes to give it a chance to come together on its own, before adjusting with a spritz of water or dusting of flour if necessary.
Cover or store the dough somewhere airtight and leave it to rest for at least 30 min.
Cut the dough into four pieces. Working with one at a time (keeping the other pieces covered while you do), using a pasta machine, roll the piece dough out until it’s about 2.5mm thick (typically setting 3 on most machines).
Pass the rolled dough through a tagliolini attachment to create your tonnarelli. Continue with the remaining dough.
Gently toss the strands with fine semolina, shape into a loose nest and place on a baking sheet lined with a clean tea towel or a dusting of fine semolina.
Sauce
Melt the butter in a large frying pan.
Throw in the anchovy fillets and cook gently until they start breaking down. The butter will start to brown and smell wonderfully nutty.
Add the sliced garlic and tomatoes and allow all of that to gently cook itself into a buttery sauce. Check for seasoning and adjust to taste.
Bring a pot of well salted water to boil and drop in the tonnarelli nests, cooking for 2-3 minutes or until al dente.
Drop the tonnarelli directly into the sauce, taking with it generous splashes of salty, starchy pasta water and toss until the pasta is evenly coated with the sauce.
Serve with dollops of burrata - or not - either way it’s delicious.
