Posted on
November 01, 2009 by
Stile Mediterraneo
What a fun day today! I and Marika made orecchiette fresh pasta with our Nonna and Mamma! Orecchiette pasta is the typical pasta course we have on a Sunday lunch. Usually our Grandmother prepares orecchiette. Because today was a special holiday (we celebrate the All Saints day) and all our family was getting together, I, Marika and our Mom went to help our Nonna.
We started making the orecchiette at 9am so that the pasta had enough time to dry before lunch (usually our Nonna starts making pasta at 7am!!…but it would have been a bit too early for us).
In Italian, “orecchietta” means little ear.
There is no other way to make the authentic orecchiette pasta, than by using a blunt-ended knife, a wooden board and….. your thumb! No machine please!! and no other sort of kitchen tools to make the typical “hat” shape.
The shape of the orecchiette pasta is completely different depending on if you are in the North (Bari area) or in the South (Lecce area) of Puglia.
In the Lecce area, we eat the orecchiette with the tomato sauce (made with basil) and the cacioricotta cheese (either goat or sheep). Therefore the orecchiette look like hats, because we want to collect as much tomato sauce as we can! And people who took our cooking classes know how good our tomato sauce can be!!
In the Bari area, orecchiette are eaten with Rape (which look like Broccoli, but are a bit more bitter) and anchovies. Therefore, orecchiette are flatter.
The size of the orecchiette pasta is completely different from town to town, even 3 km apart!
Of course, the traditional hand made orecchiette are made with durum wheat mixed with some rye flour. The dough is a little bit harder to work, but the resulting pasta has so much more flavor and a fantastic texture!!
The fact that eating durum wheat pasta is so healthy (Marika, as a Cardiologist, confirms!), ….did not make us feel guilty when we served big portions of orecchiette today at lunch.
BUON APPETITO!
For more information about Stile Mediterraneo cooking classes and wine tours in Puglia Italy please write at info.stile@gmail.com
Tags: cacioricotta cheesehandmade pastaItalian cuisineItalian pastaItaly Cooking classesorecchiettePuglia cooking classesPuglia cuisinetomato sauce
Category
Cooking tip, Favorites, Hand-made pasta, Italy Cooking classes, Mediterranean Healthy food, Pasta & Rice, Puglia, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine
Posted on
June 17, 2009 by
Stile Mediterraneo
One thing that I and Marika certainly love about the cuisine of Puglia is the fact that even though our recipes are very simple to prepare, the resulting dishes are extremely delicious. Tomato sauce is the recipe that best represents the simplicity of our cuisine. We use only these ingredients: fresh and ripe tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, basil leaves and onion. Nothing else! We promise the resulting tomato sauce will be unforgettable.
To make a good tomato sauce the quality of the tomatoes you use is very important as well as the extra virgin olive oil you add on top at the end.
Contrary to what people normally think, Italian cuisine does not use as much garlic as other cuisines (i.e. Spanish). Therefore to make the tomato sauce in Puglia we tend to prefer onion to garlic. Also, in Puglia we don’t cover the taste of the main ingredients we are using: if we make a tomato sauce we want to taste the tomatoes and not the onion. Therefore we don’t use too much onion.
As for the extra virgin olive oil, we prefer to add it at the end when the tomato sauce is ready and not in advance. This is because once cooked, the extra virgin olive oil loses all the health properties and flavors. Whereas if you add it raw it still has all its flavors.
To remove the acidity our grandmother always told us to cook the tomato sauce at least for two hours. If you don’t have that much time, you can use a sliced carrot that helps removing the acidity, instead of using sugar.
RECIPE
6 servings
Ingredients:
2 kg of fresh and ripe tomatoes
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ red onion
1 tsp sea salt
Basil leaves
Red pepper flakes
Preparation:
Soften the onion with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil. Cook the tomatoes for about two hours. Blend them with a food processor and cook them again at very low flame so that the sauce reduces more. Add basil, sea salt, red pepper and extra virgin olive oil.
For more info please email at: info.stile@gmail.com
Tags: Italy cookingmediterranean cuisinePuglia cuisinePuglia recipesPuglia traditionssaucestomato saucetomatoes
Category
Cooking tip, Favorites, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine
