the perfect arrabbiata

there's a secret ingredient

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If there’s one thing that consistently grounds me, one thing that always sets my mind right—it’s cooking for family. The sense of purpose it provides is immense.

Plus, it’s not often I get to cook for a room full of people anymore. I am decidedly not a father of four; I’m a single dude living with his dog in Detroit, Michigan. When I cook, it’s usually for me, and I’m probably multi-tasking.

But when my Mom, Dad, nephew, niece, brother, and sister-in-law all get in the same room for dinner, it really narrows my focus. Calms my mind. Opens my heart. I get tunnel (of love) vision. I suddenly don’t want or need anything else in life except to prepare a good meal for my family.

Feeding my ravenous nephew twisted new pasta ideas, hearing my niece exclaim, “Uncle Danny makes the best pasta!” with a smile plastered on her face— partner, that’s the good stuff.

Did you know that a lot of my pasta experiments run through my niece and nephew first? It’s true. Well, actually my nephew, Enzo, is the main lab rat. He’s 7 years old and he’ll eat anything. My niece (Sia, also 7 because twins) wants all of her pasta made the same way—olive oil, a generous amount of salt, and nutritional yeast. Call it the bougie kid’s butter & noodles. Enzo, though, has tried pesto made from ramps; spicy, oil cavatelli, strange meat sauces, and so much more. He’s down for whatever, so on this recent trip back home, I decided to run more laboratory tests on him.

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I’m also on a quest to make 10 new pasta shapes this year. So far, I’ve made spaghetti chitarra, lorighittas, cecconi, and now, capunti.

Capunti are shaped like little pea pods. Each pasta has tapered edges and three small indentations which work beautifully for catching sauce. They also just look cute as hell, and hail from the Puglia region of Italy. A Los Angeles chef friend and Ligurian native, Francesco Lucatorto, recognized them immediately, and DM’d me to exclaim, “capunti!” Much better than an Italian messaging you on Instagram to say, “What the fuck is this, dummy?!?!”

first time making capunti. ugly or beautiful? a little of both, I think.

The sauce I made for these tapered pea pods? Arrabbiata, AKA spicy tomato sauce with basil and pecorino. Arrabbiata hails from the Lazio region in Italy, where Rome is. Though it’s not considered one of the “big 4” Roman pasta classics, it is all the same iconic.

In the 60’s and 70’s, Rome was enjoying spicier foods. Call it their Flamin’ Hot phase. Arrabbiata started to gain popularity during this time period, and with the migration of Italian food in America, the spicy sauce came with it. You might say that this classic Roman sauce helped contribute to our own curiosity surrounding spicier foods. After all, Italian food was much, much more accepted than the food of other immigrant cultures during this time. We didn’t start with Southern Thai spicy Sichuan peppercorns—no, we eased in with Italian.

Near as I can tell, the only true requirements for an Arrabbiata sauce are tomatoes, chili peppers (usually red pepper flakes), and olive oil. Herbs can vary; garlic and cheese are optional, but the only true necessity is that it’s spicy and tomato-forward. In my estimation, however, making it properly also means using fresh herbs and highly quality Pecorino Romano.

This arrabbiata is spicy, tangy, rich, herby, and absolutely perfect. PERFECT. The no notes arrabbiata sauce of your dreams. It also features a secret ingredient, and YES—it’s hidden behind a paywall because I have to give some incentive for people to buy subscriptions here. But also, if you don’t want to commit to a sub, just DM me on Instagram and I’ll tell you what’s in it. I’m not like, crazy about gatekeeping food or anything like that.