Roger was grading all day Sunday so before heading off to the studio I decided to make orecchiette for our dinner. I saw it a while back on Francesca’s blog and Sunday was the day. Of course Francesca is Italian and I’m not but…I gave it a whirl. Francesca used her grandmother’s recipe, but I turned to Marcella Hazan:
1 cup semolina (preferably the Italian kind called semolino)
2 cup all-purpose flour [I HAVE done this with whole wheat to good effect]
1/2 tsp salt
up to 1 cup lukewarm water
The recipe calls for combining dry ingredients on a bread board and making a well for the water. Non-Italian cheater that I am I did it in the cuisinart with the dough blade…
It isn’t a sticky dough–very easy to handle. Cut off a section about as big as a lemon (a little less than a quarter of the total dough ball) and roll it into a sausage like cylinder about 3/4 of an inch thick
cut the coil in disks (“1/16th “) thick. I can’t quite manage that so
The take each disk of dough, cup it in the center of your palm and, with a rotary pressure of the thumb of your other hand, make a depression in the center of the disk flattening and widening the disk. This sounds lengthy but really is just a quick twist.
I made then in the morning and cooked them for dinner. You can also dry them and keep up to a month, though the fun of fresh pasta is, well, fresh pasta!
The traditional Apulian recipe calls for broccoli florets and red pepper flakes (maybe with anchovies), but I was trying to avoid the grocery and use what I had on hand so I did garlic, pepper flakes, chicken sausage and peas.
This pasta cooks longer than fresh egg pasta, but that is to say NOT long. Bring a big pan of salted water to boil, add pasta and cook for 10-20 seconds after that water returns to a boil–NO MORE!!! Garnish with fresh grated romano cheese. YUM!!!!!! (Note: I cooked pasta, finished the stir-fry and then added the pasta to the pan for a quick warm up.)
I am starving just looking at this scrumptious stuff.
Creativity cascading over into the kitchen…love it!
Yum, and we are virtually just across the street. Call anytime and we will come running. I loved the step-by-step pictures and instructions. I can do this.
You CAN do this–it’s easy and yummy!!
Thank you for the recipe…looks delicious.