The best venetian pasta: bigoli in salsa

If you like to try the best Venetian pasta you must go for the bigoli in salsa! The bigoli are a special shape of pasta very similar to the Italian spaghetti and the sauce is a fish-based recipe with a special touch… find the ‘how to make it’ in this article and get your Venetian insider tip so to surprise all your guests!

The venetian tradition says that the story of the bigoli in salsa began in the XVI century when Marco Polo brought to Venice a special press which was used by the chinese to make the soy vermicelli. However, The bigolo name probably derives from the dialect word 'bigat' which indicates the caterpillar and which recalls the way in which the bigolo comes out of the press.

Bigoli are like the Italian spaghetti but just a little bit larger. Thus, if you cannot find the type of pasta required, you can still replace it even with ‘linguine’ or ‘spaghettoni’.  The sauce for bigoli requires 8 anchovy fillets, extra virgin olive oil, 300 g of white onions and salt.

As first, you have to slice the onions in very thin slices and cook them in hot olive oil without letting them color or dry: in this case, you can add a little hot water. When the onions are ready, add the anchovies and let them dissolve slowly until a homogeneous mixture is obtained. If you want to give a special and exothic touch to the pasta, you can also add pine nuts and raisins, without forgetting a pinch of chives.

While preparing the sauce you will have already put to boil the water to cook the bigoli: salt the water (it is always better not to put too much salt at the beginning: if you need it, you can add more during the cooking) and throw the pasta following the directions of the package.

Bigoli can be prepared with soft wheat flour or whole wheat flour and sometimes even some recipes without eggs can be found. Once the bigoli are cooked al dente, pour them into the pan where you have prepared the sauce and mix adding a little oil and a couple of spoons of the cooking water.  The dish should be consumed immediately because over time the sauce tends to dry out and to become saltier. If you have in the fridge a bottle of Prosecco or dry white wine, do not hesitate to bring it together with your splendid bigoli in salsa.