I tried but ultimately did not kill the pasta

There's an October heatwave coming in a couple days and the forecast says it's going last more than a week. These are the meteorological vicissitudes of Los Angeles. I won't be cooking unless it's at 5am for a cold dinner late in the afternoon. This week, then, I'm clearing out the refrigerator and prepping like there's a reverse-blizzard on the way.

There was some burrata in there, flirting with its use-it-or-toss-it date. There was also a jar of 'nduja hanging out in the door. 'Nduja is a spreadable pork and fat sausage made with Calabrian chili. You can use it a lot of ways, but I wouldn't put it on vanilla ice cream like someone once told me to do with chili crisp.*

I didn't know about 'nduja until it appeared on a pizza I ate at Pizzeria Mozza. After that moment it became very important to me. Anytime it showed up on a menu, I forgot about all other options. Then I needed to get it and use it in a recipe. I didn't know which recipe, but I had to find some and cook with it like a person who just casually says, "Oh, yes, 'nduja. I keep it on hand always," like I'm being interviewed for a glossy print food magazine, and they've chosen me to talk about what I keep in my refrigerator, because people care about everything I'm doing and my special ingredients. This has never happened and never will, but I found the 'nduja, and that's one of the nice things about Los Angeles: if you want an ingredient, someone somewhere sells it. And no, I don't know why it's spelled that way, apostrophe-first, but you say it like en-DOO-ya.

A chunk of credit leftover on a generous 2025 Christmas gift card to Gwen's butcher counter was used to purchase the 'nduja, and once I got it, I didn't want to simply stare at it and think it was too special to enjoy. So I made Spaghetti all'Assassina for the first time. Kinda sorta.

I mean, I did make it. Just not well. Look, don't try this unless you're brave about intentionally burning things on the stove. [A note about bravery: I once had the opportunity to meet Nigella Lawson because there was a cookbook signing and I went. I got my book signed and in lieu of having my photo taken with her, I said, "I actually just wanted to tell you that you have given me confidence to cook," and it's true, she did, the queen of encouraging the culinary-skill-set-adjacent person tasked with making dinner. Anyway, whatever determination not to fuck it up that I learned from her flew out the window in this instance.]

Spaghetti all'Assassina means what it looks like it means: "Assassin's Spaghetti" (or bucatini or linguine, whatever). And the process involves burning the dry pasta before any liquid is added at all. "Killing the pasta," I see in various explanations. The pasta "screams." Recipes for this use that kind of language. That's because you very deliberately put your dry spaghetti in a hot frying pan until it's charred. Then you cook it in the tomato sauce you build around it. You add dry pepper flakes or chopped red chili, and in the case of the particular recipe I used, some 'nduja, and then burrata at the end.

I put the garlic and tomato paste and chili in the pan, then the spaghetti. Then I let it get crispy. This was weird, but fine. And then when it began to char, some of it going a little too black for my expectations, I began to doubt myself. How much blackened pasta is too much? It can't all just be burned sticks. Some of it has to be pliable or else it's just a collection of mouth stabs for dinner. Will it be edible? Some burny bits on the ends? In the middle? How much is major crunch a part of the finished product? Am I going to ruin this? I'm going to ruin this. I panicked, and I added the liquid too soon.

The pasta cooks more slowly in simmering sauce, and you stir occasionally to keep it from sticking to the pan, because charring your pasta is the point but letting it adhere to the pan is not. The liquid reduces, and you wind up with a very silky texture, which is nice, and, if you do it better than I did, there will be a good portion of crunchy and blackened spaghetti parts mixed in with the normally cooked parts. Because I flinched, the whole thing leaned very heavily into the spectrum end of "normally cooked."

I added the burrata to finish it and that made it excellently creamy. The chili and 'nduja made it spicy. And while I failed at a key technical aspect, it was highly satisfying all the same. What I lacked in daring, I compensated for with flavor. Alonso loved it. I got the "como te ha salido," which is an old Duralde family joke – "How well it has turned out for you." I take the "como te ha salido" very seriously, so it wasn't really a failure, just not a full success. In the future, I'll be courageous and will not be scared to truly kill it, to turn into brick-and-soot, occasionally injurious to the mouth.

He ate the last of it for lunch just now and said, "That is incredibly delicious. Make it right next time."

*I did the chili crisp on vanilla ice cream thing once. It was ok.

[photo taken by me, the leftovers-for-lunch version, proof that it was too soft and afraid, like the cook]