Durum Wheat Bread | Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

Durum wheat semolina 7

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

One of the key ingredients of the Pugliese cuisine is semolina from durum wheat. In Italian, semolina translates into “semola di grano duro”.
Semolina can only be made from durum wheat and is very yellow in color. It is completely different from the white flour (farina Bianca) which comes from softer wheats.

Durum wheat semolina is much richer in protein and healthier because slower to be digested.
Puglia is a big producer of durum wheat. In fact Puglia is also known as the “Granaio d’Italia”, Granary of Italy. If you go to the Northern part of Puglia, the so-called Tavoliere di Puglia, you will be amazed by the beautiful yellow grain fields.

In Puglia all types of fresh handmade pasta, dry pasta, bread and even some cakes are made of durum wheat semolina. For pasta nothing else is used but durum wheat semolina and water. Our personal experience is that kneading the pasta dough made of durum wheat semolina is much easier than with other kinds of flour. It just gives you the perfect consistency right away and the resulting taste is unique!
All bread made in the Altamura (read this interesting article The Bread Is Famously Good, but It Killed McDonald’s ), Laterza and Matera areas, is made of durum wheat semolina as well, which results in a more yellow bread. The interesting thing about bread made of durum wheat semolina is that it can last for many days or even a week, if kept in a dry environment and in a paper bag (we actually think it is much better after two or three days). No preservatives are added to this bread!
Very impressive results are also reached when semolina is used to bake cakes or tarts. Not only the color is very warm and beautiful, but also the taste is much richer.
For more info please email at: info.stile@gmail.com

Tags: Altamura bread durum wheat durum wheat bread handmade pasta Puglia Puglia cuisine semolina
Category Hand-made pasta, Mediterranean Healthy food

Fava beans and chicory – Healthy and easy recipe! 6

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

If you ever get invited by a Pugliese family at their lunch or dinner, you can be sure they will offer you Fava beans with wild chicories and extra virgin olive oil (among the other one thousands dishes!!).

This is something that all families from Puglia eat at least once per week. I and my sister, at least twice per week!

This is a very simple but still super delicious dish.

It is perfect for everybdoy: for vegeterians, for people who work a lot and have no time to shop for food every day, for kids….for everybody!

It is a super healthy dish because this legume has LOTS of proteins.

Fava beans with chicories come from Puglia’s traditional paesant cuisine, based on very little meat (that only rich people could afford) and on what the local farmers produced – lots of vegetables, legumes, durum wheat pasta and bread.

Given the simplicity of this dish (as all food from Puglia), the quality of the ingredients you use is the key! Therefore, you need to serve the fava beans with very good extra virgin olive oil. And if you are having it with bread, you need to use the durum wheat bread!

This is the recipe:
5 servings
- 400 grams dried peeled fava beans,
- salt to taste
- 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 liter water
- 1 kg wild chicories
- 1 garlic clove
- spicy pepper
- durum wheat traditional bread

Soak the fava broad beans overnight (8-12 hours), before cooking. Rinse and place the fava broad beans in a big casserole with fresh water. Place over a slow flame. When the water starts boiling, remove with a spoon the white foam that the fava beans produce. Stir every 10-20 minutes and cook for about 2 hours at very slow flame, while the beans gradually dissolve. Add water from time to time if needed.
While you cook the fava beans, wash the wild chicories. Cook them for about 5-10 minutes in boiling and salted water. When they are “al dente”, drain the chicories.
In a large saucepan, pour some extra virgin olive oil (two tablespoons), add the garlic and spicy pepper and cook for about two minutes. Add the chicories, stir and cover. Cook at low flame for other 5-10 minutes.
When the fava beans are completely dissolved, switch off the flame and add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (or more if you like) while stirring with a wooden spoon.
Serve the fava beans with the chicory on the side in the same plate. The chicory and fava beans are meant to be eaten together!
You can also serve them with small pieces of traditional durum wheat bread. You can add other extra virgin olive oil.

Please share with us other healthy and simple recipes you know!

For more information, please contact us at: info@stilemediterraneo.it

Tags: durum wheat bread fava beans legumes mediterranean cuisine peasant cuisine Puglia cuisine Puglia Extra virgin olive oil Recipes vegetables wild chicory
Category Mediterranean Healthy food, Puglia, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine

Savour Puglia’s cuisine in Cisternino – Valle d’Itria 2

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Stile Mediterraneo

Cisternino, ranked among the most beautiful small villages within Italy, is a small hilltop town with a spectacular panorama of the countryside. The streets are narrow and maze-like, whitewashed like in Greece.

Cisternino is an enchanting medieval village surrounded by fertile fields of Olive groves and vineyards, some of the most abundant in Puglia. Its historic center is characterized by its architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries. Visitors will undoubtedly be struck by the predominance of white buildings. This small village is the classic example of “spontaneous architecture,” designed not by architects following a preestablished plan, but rather by human relations to be fit together, among whitewashed houses and narrow streets, the tiny courtyards and outside stairs, the arches and flower-filled balconies: spaces to appear at, look and lean out from, where people can meet and gather; shared spaces, both public and private.

In the unreal silence of summer afternoons, when the drowsy village abandons itself to indolence before the coming to life again in the evening, it is nice to walk down the chianche (stone-paved streets) among the play of light and shadow created by the narrow streets, the arches, the underpasses. Dazzling white walls and blue sky: this is the poetry of the south.

There’s no better place to savour the regional Puglian cuisine than Cisternino which is dubbed a town of gastronomy. Restaurants and trattorias are here at every turn and set their tables out in the narrow whitewashed streets and piazzas. You have to visit the market and buy locally-produced ingredients such as pecorino cheese, local sausage, fresh capers and scarlet peppers. …but also olives and famous bread.
Cisternino also has an irresistible lamb meat tradition: you personally choose your own meat from the butcher shop and have it barbecued at the attached restaurant!

At night the historic heart of town wakes up and musicians of all ages play traditional music.

Tags: Cisternino durum wheat bread pecorino cheese Puglia bread Valle Itria
Category Puglia, cuisine, things to do in Puglia