Maccheroni alla Chitarra con Ragù d'Agnello

Abruzzo sits on a fault line in Italian cooking, where the egg pasta of the north meets the dried pasta of the south. The region chose neither. It invented its own tradition: fresh egg pasta pressed through wire strings stretched across a wooden frame, like the strings of a guitar. The result is a square-cut noodle with texture on all four sides, built to hold sauce.

The ragù comes from necessity. Abruzzo is mountain country, wild and steep, where sheep have grazed since before Rome existed. The shepherds who followed their flocks through these hills ate lamb because lamb was what they had. They simmered it slowly over low fires, stretching the meat with tomatoes and aromatics, creating a sauce that could feed a family on a single joint.

This is not delicate food. The pasta is sturdy. The ragù is rich with rendered fat and the particular sweetness of lamb cooked until it falls apart. If you find yourself adding cream or butter to finish, you have missed the point entirely. The lamb provides its own richness. Trust it.