Frankie’s was an old and popular seafood restaurant at 11th and Tasker streets in South Philadelphia that was a favorite of ours when our sons were young. After a Sunday afternoon baseball game or maybe a visit to a museum, we would stop into Frankie’s for a late afternoon supper. The place was right out of a “Godfather” movie as was the clientele. The food was wonderful: Mostly all seafood and very old-world Italian.
It was at Frankie’s that I had one of my most memorable experiences in the hot food department. My son, James, and I seem to share a passion for hot spicy food. At Frankie’s, one of our favorite dishes to order was pasta and shrimp Fra Diavolo (“brother devil”). After one mouthful of perhaps the hottest food we had ever tasted, the forks went down. We had met our match.
The central and southern sections of Italy are fond of their hot and spicy food. In Abruzzi, a region of Italy along the Adriatic coast, the traditional small hot red chili pepper known elsewhere as the peperoncino, is called piccolo diavolo or “little devil.” I managed to eat one of these little peppers once as it lay hidden in an innocent green salad. It, too, was an unforgotten experience and quite unfair as I remember it.
I did a little research on the Abruzzians’ love for the “little devil.” Cooks add it to everything from meats and seafood, to eggs and vegetables. Octopus slowly stewed in olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, parsley and hot pepper flakes is known as “polpi in purgatorio.” Bottles of olio santo or “holy oil” are made by infusing olive oil with chopped piccolo diavolos and are placed on dining tables for drizzling on foods. Elderly women are said to spend hours stringing the thin red chilies into large clusters and then hanging them out to dry in the sun.
I keep my little jar of “crushed red pepper flakes” pretty close and add them to many dishes. They spice up quick marinara sauces and soups, stir-fried asparagus or zucchini, tuna and beans and pasta con vongole, or pasta with clams. One of my favorite pasta sauces is All’Arrabbiata, or “Angry Tomato Sauce.” I make it often or order it out whenever I can find it. You can add extra red chilies to the recipe to make a really fiery dish. As with so many other Italian specialties, there are numerous recipe variations for Arrabbiata. The one that follows is from Patissima, Pasta the Italian Way, another old-friend cookbook in my collection.
Penne All’Arrabbiata
- Place the following in a large sauté pan with 1/3 cup olive oil: ¼ cup diced pancetta or bacon, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, 1 finely chopped celery stalk, and 1 finely chopped medium onion.
- Add 3 cups of crushed tomatoes, 6 mint leaves and 6 basil leaves torn, 3 tablespoons of chopped Italian parsley and ½ to 1 teaspoon dried red chili flakes (maybe more?). Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Simmer over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes until thickened.
- Cook 1 pound of penne according to package directions, drain the pasta and place it in the skillet with the sauce. Toss together over high heat to incorporate the flavors and then transfer to a serving dish.
- Top with freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese.
If you can find whole red peperoncinos at a specialty store, give them a try. They will keep indefinitely in an airtight jar. You also might want to try making your own hot chili oil by warming chili flakes or whole chili peppers in olive oil and then pouring the mixture into in a jar for storage in the refrigerator. Drizzle it over everything! Your vegetable, even corn on the cob, will never again be boring or bland. Serve the Pasta Arrabbiata with good Italian bread, a crisp arugula salad and a cold white wine to cut the heat.
Frankie’s is gone from South Philly but I have happy memories of our outings there and the one day the “little devil” got the better of us.
