20 Jan RECIPE – ORECCHIETTE E PISELLI
One of the advantages of having our office at home is that Luca sometimes whips up a delicious lunch using what we have in the cupboard or fridge.
Today it was frozen peas and some lovely orecchiette!
- 1 x onion – finely chopped
- 1 x clove of garlic – halved
- 250g frozen peas
- 200ml vegetable stock
- 180g orecchiette
Fry the onion and garlic very slowly in some olive oil for 5-10minutes
Add the frozen peas and vegetable stock and cook, covered over a very low heat
Cook the orecchiette in a large saucepan of salted water
As required add a little water from the pasta pot to the peas if they are drying out
Remove the garlic pieces (if you can find them!) and roughly mash some of the pea mixture with a potato masher or the back of wooden spoon
Cook the orecchiette for 5 minutes less than the recommended cooking time on the packet, remove it from the salted water with a slotted spoon and add to the pea mixture
Continue cooking the orecchiette in the pea mixture (adding some pasta cooking water as required, similar to how you would cook a risotto) until it is cooked to your liking – al dente I hope!
Remove from the heat, stir through some grated grana padano or parmigiano reggiano and serve
Buon appetito!
Orecchiette is a typical pasta from the Puglia region in southern Italy and still today, particularly in Bari, you can see groups of women sitting out on the narrow medieval streets hand-making the local specialty. The pasta dough is rolled out into a long snake, cut and flattened in one seamless movement whilst the women chat with each other and passers-by!
The name orecchiette basically means “little ears” and the pasta takes its name from its distinctive shape. Orecchiette, like much of the pasta from southern Italy, is made without eggs, using just flour and water.
Visit Puglia with Italian Tours in May 2017 or September 2017
