The Puglia cuisine is one of the best Italian ones
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 4 € pp)
- Salt
- 500 g fresh pasta without eggs or 320 g dried orecchiette
- 40 g dried porcini
- the flowers of a small broccoli
- 100 g guanciale
- EV olive oil
- 1 onion
- 20 g parmigiano reggiano or grana cheese
- Black pepper
Puglia is a southern Italian region at the Adriatic sea. It has hundreds of beautiful beaches, very interesting towns such as Bari, Lecce and Altamura and world wide attractions, Alberobello is one of them. But above all Puglia has a monumental cuisine with star dishes as the spaghetti all´ assassina, the friselle, the pasticcioti Leccesi and the lamb dish I often prepare on Easter, el Vredett or Easter Brodetto.
The two most characteristic Pugliese pasta shapes are the cavatelli and the orecchiette, today we will prepare the second ones.
Orecchiette are made with fresh pasta without eggs and are been usually paired with cime di rapa, an ancient variation of broccoli. To prepare the orecchiette we first must shape the pasta in thick strings, then cut the strings in small rounds and finally with a round-edge knife with dents to form them to orecchiette. The whole procedure is difficult to be presented with words, I would suggest you to watch a relative video on Youtube, there are plenty of them. You can also use dried ones.
Let´s start.
After having prepared the orecchiette as we already have learnt, or as you can see here, we start frying the guanciale. We cut it in medium cubes and we put it WITH NO ADDITIONAL FATS in a COLD pan. Using VERY LOW heat we start sub-frying the guanciale and extracting its fat. After about 30 to 40 minutes we raise the temperature to LOW (not HIGHER) in order to turn the guanciale crispy. We keep aside.
Oh I forgot, meanwhile we put the dried porcini in lukewarm water to soak them, leaving them there for about 45 minutes.
In the pan where we have fried the guanciale we add the onion, cut in dice and we sub-fry it for at least 30 mins, adding some water if necessary.
We bring to boil plenty of salted water and we blanch the broccoli flowers, cut in very small pieces for about 2 minutes. In a small skillet we add some olive oil and we sauté the porcini and the broccoli flowers for about 2 minutes.
In the same pot we boil the orecchiette till less than al dente, we drain them and we add them at the pan with the onion. We add the broccoli, the porcini and a ladle of boiling water and we continue boiling. We add the cheese and we start to mantecare.
We check the saltiness, we add the guanciale cubes and some pepper and we serve.
