An eastern-Sicilian pasta stained inky black by cuttlefish, a fishermen's dish that wastes nothing of the catch. Cleaned cuttlefish is cut into strips and braised in a sauce of garlic, onion, white wine and tomato, and the ink from its own sac is stirred in near the end, colouring the sauce a glossy black-violet and lending it a deep, briny savour. Tossed through spaghetti and finished with parsley, it is a staple along the coasts of Catania, Siracusa and Messina, where all three cities claim it as their own.
A dish of the eastern Sicilian coast and of fishermen's thrift, born from the habit of using every part of the cuttlefish, the ink sac included. Along this shore the same black sauce dresses pasta in the west of the island and rice in the east, and Messina, Siracusa and Catania all lay claim to it. Its most theatrical offspring is Catania's ripiddu nivicatu, whose name in dialect means 'snowed-over lava gravel': a mound of cuttlefish-ink risotto shaped like Mount Etna, capped with a cream of fresh sheep's ricotta for snow and streaked with a fiery chilli-tomato sauce for the lava flow. That plated volcano was invented in 1974 by Giuseppe La Rosa of the Catania restaurant La Siciliana, a sign of how firmly the black sauce sits at the centre of the city's table.
Deeply savoury and marine, salty and faintly sweet with a clean mineral edge from the ink, the sauce clings glossy and dark to every strand. The cuttlefish is tender with a gentle spring, the parsley lifts it fresh, and where a little chilli is used it warms the finish. It stains lips and teeth black, part of the fun.
Cuttlefish ink is a suspension of melanin pigment in mucus, and it is the fine melanin granules that dye the sauce black-violet as they disperse through the oil and water; the ink also carries free amino acids, among them glutamic acid, which deepen its umami savour. Cephalopod muscle is dense with cross-linked collagen, which makes timing everything: a very short cook keeps the cuttlefish tender, a long gentle braise breaks the collagen down to softness, but the middle ground turns it rubbery. A splash of white wine adds acidity and, with the tomato, brightens the ink's mineral note, while a spoon of starchy pasta water helps the oil and juices emulsify into a sauce that coats rather than slides off.
Variations
Format follows geography: spaghetti, bucatini, linguine or short pasta in the west, and risotto rice in the east, most famously as Catania's Etna-shaped ripiddu nivicatu with its ricotta 'snow'. Some cooks keep the sauce a pure nero of garlic and oil alone, others build it on tomato as here; a little chilli, a handful of toasted breadcrumbs for crunch, or a few chopped tomatoes stirred in at the end are all common. The same ink dresses risotto in Venice and colours the Catalan arròs negre and Croatian crni rižot.
On the Palate
Where Pasta col Nero di Seppia sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
7 steps · 30 min
- 120 min
Clean the cuttlefish, carefully removing and reserving the ink sacs, and cut the bodies into strips.
- 26 min
Gently soften the garlic and onion in olive oil without letting them colour.
- 35 min
Add the cuttlefish strips and sauté briefly, then pour in the white wine and let it evaporate.
- 425 min
Stir in the tomato passata, cover and braise gently until the cuttlefish is tender, about 25 minutes.
Watch outBraise the cuttlefish gently right through to tender, about twenty-five minutes — the middle ground turns it rubbery, so cook it either short or fully soft.
- 55 min
Dissolve the reserved ink into the sauce with a little water and simmer a few minutes more.
- 610 min
Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente, reserving a cup of the water.
Watch outPull the spaghetti at al dente and save a cup of the water — it keeps softening in the hot black sauce, and the starchy water helps it cling.
- 73 min
Toss the pasta through the sauce with a splash of pasta water, scatter with parsley and serve at once.
