This classic Venetian dish you can whip up out of your pantry, making the sauce while the pasta cooks. I’ve enjoyed this across the Veneto region, from an osteria along the Grand Canal in Venice to a lakeside trattoria on Lake Garda, as sardines are found in both saltwater and fresh. Sardines play an important part in the local markets in Italy because of its low price and its ease of preserving. Salted sardines are perfect for this dish, but hard to find here in the US, however sardines packed in oil work just fine.

Bigoli is an extruded pasta in the form of a long and thick tube. Venetian grandmothers would make bigoli with a bigolaro, a press that was fixed to the table or a stool: the Nonna would put a bowl under the bigolaro and then press the dough with the machine and the long spaghetti would fall into the basin below. We’ve made this several times during our cooking classes on our Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine Italy tours. Dried Bucatini pasta is a good substitute available here in our US supermarkets.

Traditionally, bigoli was a common dish eaten during the days of abstinence and fasting: Christmas Eve, Ash Wednesday and Holy Friday were always the days of “bigoli in salsa” across towns of the Veneto, with a combination of bigoli and salted sardines. Each town would have their favored variation, with a few other ingredients, including cherry tomatoes, garlic, capers.

This version I’ve kept to items that can be stored in your pantry, except for an optional garnish of parsley. I added some bread crumbs for a bit of crunch. The sweetness of the onions complements the strong salty flavor of the sardines. Enjoy with a nice crisp glass of Soave or a sparkling prosecco from the Veneto.

Bigoli con Le Sarde

Serves 4

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Two 4 3/8 ounce tins sardines packed in oil, bones and head removed, minced
1 medium red onion, sliced
2 tablespoons white wine
1 pound bigoli, or bucatini
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup bread crumbs

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan. Add the sardines and onion and cook until onions are soft. Before the onions brown, add the wine to stop the cooking and remove from heat.

Bring a large pot of water to boil, and add a generous amount of salt. Add the bucatini and cook until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking liquid, then drain the pasta.

Add bucatini to the sardine sauce and mix, adding a bit of the reserved cooking water as needed to loosen the sauce. Toss with bread crumbs and serve immediately.