Out-of-office onions
Recipe #158: fileja with Tropea onions, chilli and tomato
Are you not entertained?
Being the most online friend in the group chat is no easy task. I’m sending videos of a guy serving himself a pint of espresso in Wetherspoons, memes about Tesla AI robots, and reminders to book supper club tickets. Just generally keeping everyone entertained.
That’s especially true this week as Eat My Words is enjoying some well-deserved holiday in Tropea - Calabria, Italy, the Earth - a town that will improve your capacity for multi-course meals, and where you’re more likely to see a dolphin taking a selfie than a Brit on the beach wearing Orlebar Browns and reading ‘Diary of a CEO’.
All of this is good news for you as this week’s recipe is fileja with Tropea onions, chilli and tomato.
This week’s album: Pensa by Fabrizio Moro
Did you know: parents in the UK can give their child any surname they want. Literally any surname. Nuts. This is just one of the many insights we’ve garnered from our trip to Tropea. Another is this week’s album which is Italian through and through. The song ‘Pensa’ is making a late push for inclusion in Ben’s 2024 Spotify unwrapped.
A dish so good, you’ll cry (like an onion)
While this is our first visit to Tropea, we’ve touched on the region of Calabria before (a: spaghetti b: arancini c: scallops) by using the always-popular ‘nduja - a spicy, smoked and spreadable pork sausage most famously from Spilinga.
This week we’ll focus on Tropea’s star ingredient: the Tropea onion (well done to the naming team). Wandering around town you’ll see signs all over for dishes containing these beloved onions. You can even find Tropea onion gelato. Note: just because you can find it, doesn’t mean you should eat it.
The idea with this week’s dish is to keep things really simple to showcase the incredible flavour of these super sweet onions. We’ll use a bit of very good tomato passata, some chilli (Calabrians love chilli), capers, and some optional cheese to finish. You could always add ‘nduja, as per the recipe linked above, or some anchovies (another favourite of Calbrians) but it’s worth trying our simple version first.
We’re going to use a pasta called ‘fileja’ (the pronunciation is similar to the American ‘fillet’) as it’s the pasta of the region. It’s a type of macaroni - similar to ‘busiate’ - which is hand-rolled into long thin strips that are cut to length and then pulled over a bamboo skewer to shape them. The resulting shape is excellent at holding the sauce, but any similar shape will do just as good a job.
What you need
The below serves 2. It takes 10 mins to prep and 25 minutes to cook.
200-220g fileja (or similar pasta)
4 tbsps extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove (skin on, lightly crushed)
2 Tropea onions (or best-quality red onion)
250g passata
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tbsp capers (rinsed & soaked if using salted)
6 basil leaves
20g finely grated pecorino/parmesan/ricotta salata (optional)
Sea salt & black pepper
Ready, steady, cook
1. Top and tail the onions, cut in half, peel the skin, cut in half again lengthwise, finely slice. Set aside.
2. Add a large frying pan to a medium heat and, when hot, add 2 tbsps of olive oil along with the crushed garlic clove. Heavy is the hand that adds the garlic.
Sauté gently for 30 seconds. Now add the finely sliced onions and a good pinch of salt. Slightly lower the heat and leave to cook gently for 15 mins, stirring every so often.
NOTE: we want to cook, and completely soften, the onions without colouring them. This will intensify the flavour without detracting from it (which is what colouring would do).
3. Meanwhile, place a large pan of salted water onto a high flame. Bring to the boil.
4. When the water is boiling, add the pasta and set a timer for two mins less than the packet instructions for ‘al dente’.
5. Once the onions are completely cooked, add the dried chilli flakes and the passata. Turn up the heat and bring to a simmer, tossing the pan occasionally. Cook for about 4-5 mins.
NOTE: to retain a fresh flavour we’re only going to cook the passata very briefly. This is why it’s important to start with a decent quality one (lower quality stuff will already have a bitterness which can only be removed by cooking it for a long time).
6. Just before your timer goes off, take a ladle of the pasta cooking water and add it to the onion and tomato mixture, along with the capers. Drain the pasta and add it to the mixture. Toss everything together and leave to cook on a medium-high heat for another two mins, tossing the pan regularly. Remove the garlic clove.
7. Finally, tear up the basil leaves and add to the pasta along with a few twists of freshly ground black pepper and the remaining 2 tbsps of extra-virgin olive oil. Toss together once more and serve on warmed plates. If using, sprinkle over the grated cheese of your choice.
Final thought
Supper club on Saturday 7th December. Lunch club on Sunday 8th December. Be there. Full details here. Handful of places left for Sunday, two handfuls left for Saturday.
Speak again next week,
Fraser