Rooster with pasta

Ingredients

- • 1 rooster, cut into pieces
  • 800g thick spaghetti pasta
  • 1 kg fresh tomato purée (blended tomatoes)
  • 5 pcs. whole allspice
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 2 onions
  • 2 pcs. cinnamon stick
  • A little nutmeg, freshly grated
  • A little sugar
  • 1 glass of white wine
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Method

Pour olive oil into a pot and sauté the rooster pieces on both sides. Then put the rooster pieces in a bowl, add the chopped onion, chopped garlic, cinnamon and allspice to the pot and sauté. Add the sautéed rooster pieces, salt, pepper, and deglaze with white wine. Add water to cover the rooster, add the bay leaves and let it simmer for about 1 hour. Then take 2 glasses of rooster broth, pour it into a pot with water and boil the spaghetti. While the pasta is boiling, pour the fresh tomato purée and continue simmering for another 1 hour until the rooster is tender enough.

Once the sauce has thickened and the rooster has become tender, rub some nutmeg and turn off the heat. Serve the thick spaghetti on a platter with the rooster and the sauce on top. Optionally add grated kefalotyri cheese or grated dried myzithra cheese.

Α few words...

According to custom, rooster with pasta is the absolute protagonist of the rich New Year’s Day menu in Ilia. After all, every farmhouse used to raise its own chickens and also used to make pasta by hand in an elaborate way. Rooster, moreover, was not just an animal, intended only for breeding and butchery. It was traditionally associated with some important superstitions: when the rooster crowed untimely it meant that bad weather was on the way, while when a new house was being built people used to slaughter a rooster on its foundation in order to ensure that it will always be solid.

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