Tomato sauce

...and more about the pleasures of Puglia

A plain tomato sugo - no meat or any additional flavourings - to serve with one of Puglia's hand-formed no-egg pastas.  The traditional dishes of Puglia, I was told on my first visit to the region circa 2002 by teacher and historian Paola Pettini - credited with teaching the housewives of her native Bari how to prepare the traditional dishes of the region:

"The basic Pugliense cuisine is cucina povere, poor-man’s cooking. which is whatever can be grown or husbanded without recourse to money. Pastas lack the enrichment of eggs, bread relies on the flavour of the wheat, meat is used sparingly or not at all. The Pugliese are not natural restaurant-goers, preferring to eat at home where both food and company can be trusted.  Public eateries are more likely to offer the universal fast foods - why should the locals go out to eat when they can eat better and more cheaply at home? As a visitor, the midday meal is your best bet - in a hot climate, people eat lightly in the evening. If the menu looks on the fancy side, ask for whatever the kitchen-workers are eating."

What follows is my notes on how and what to cook as the Pugliese do at home.

To prepare a batch of  fresh no-egg pasta to serve 4-6 (depending on appetites):  heap 1.5k hard durum wheat flour (semola di grano duro) onto a wooden board. Make a well in the middle with your fist and pour about 500ml plain well-water (no salt). Mix the flour and water with your hand, adding about another 250ml water gradually till you have a firm dough.  Knead it with the heel of your hand till elastic and smooth - work it patiently for at least 10 minutes longer if necessary.  When smooth, cut into chunks and use the palms and fingers of both hands - push with an even pressure - to roll the dough into a rope as thick as your little finger.  Keep the rest covered with a cloth while you work.  Proceed as follows:

Orechiette (stacciodde in the Ostuni dialect): prepare a smooth, well-worked dough as above, and pat it into a ball.  Cut off a thick slice of the dough, roll it into a rope asthick as your index finger. Chop the dough into a cube (cover therest of the dough as you work to stop it drying out).  Push the dough-cube against the near-side of the blade, hold it on the other side with the tip of your index finger and pull the knife towards youon a gentle slope to make a saucer-shape. Now roll the shape over onto your thumb and flip it into a little hat with the rough side uppermost.  To cook, drop into plenty of boiling salted water, wait until it re-boils, then drain.  Serve with a plain tomato sauce (as above) with or without marble-sized no-meat meatballs, polpettine, prepared with grated cheese instead of meat.

Cavatelli: roll the pasta into a thin rope, as for orchiette, then cut into squares, pushing away from you with the knife sloped as above, but this time don’t use your index finger to hold it back. To cook, drop into lots of boiling salted water, wait until it reboils, then drain.  Good for a soupy pasta with chickpeas, or serve as do as they do in Lecce, as ciceri e tria, chickpeas with past finished with a handful of no-egg pasta ribbons dropped into hot olive oil to puff and crisp.

Cicatelli: start with a thinner rope - just a bit thinner than your little finger - and chop into short lengths about the size of a pea-pod, mark with three fingers and pull gently to make an open-topped three-hole bolster. To cook, drop into plenty of boiling salted water, wait until it reboils and drain immediately.  Serve with cardoncello, oyster mushroom that grow on wild artichokes (now in cultivation), sliced and cooked in olive oil with a little garlic.

Zucchine in agrodolce (sweet-and-sour courgettes): slice as many courgettes as you wish into thin disks and sprinkle with cold olive oil.  When you're ready to cook, transfer everything a frying pan, cover loosely and cook 3-4 minutes depending on the thickness ofd the slices. Remove from the heat, and add a dash of vinegar for the acidity (if you like).  Dress with capers and a little salt and dust with dried or fresh breadcrumbs fried crisp in a little olive oil. Or omit the vinegar and capers and finish with grated pecorino or parmesan.

Melanzana marinata: slice aubergine(s) horizontally into very thin ribbons, sprinkle with lemon juice and a little sea salt and leave to pickle for a couple of hours. Drain and dress with olive oil and chopped parsley. Serve plain, or roll up with de-salted, de-boned anchovies (no need to de-salt etc if from a tin under oil) and eat with the fingers.

Lampascioni (Muscari comosum, tassel-hyacinth bulbs,): to prepare for the pot, soak overnight and cook in lightly-vinegared water for an hour or two till soft and mild.  Treat as you would potatoes.

Barattieri (melon/cucumber lookalike, Cucumis melo): prepare as any other gourd ("Didn't your mother teach you anything?"): cut in half and scoop out the woolly heart and seeds; then slice, peel and serve as a salad with radishes, rinsed but still with their green tops.

Sporchia (aka orobanche/broomrape): trim the hard tips and boil in salted water, as for asparagus, drain thoroughly and eat with a dipping-sauce of olive oil and lemon-juice with mint and crushed garlic.  Or chop into short lengths and prepare as a frittata. 

Cime de rape stuffato: Allow 1 kilo greens (broccoli-rabe or any member of the broccoli/turnip-top family) to 100ml olive oil and one diced onion or 2-3 garlic cloves: place in a roomy pan with a tablespoon of water if spring has been a little dry. Cover and cook slowly in their own juices for about 20 minutes, till tender. Bubble up to concentrate the juices. Taste and add a pinch of crushed pepperoncini or chilli. Vegetables grown Puglia's coastal flats are salty enough themselves. 

Melanzane al forno (baked aubergines): allow one aubergine per person: slice through the middle horizontally and slash each side in three places without going right through.  Fill each slice with chopped garlic, parsley and slivers of pecorino. Salt lightly, drizzle with olive oil and bake for 20-25 minutes in a medium oven - 350F/180C/Gas4.

Fave e ciccoria: dried fava-beans (skinned) cooked as a porridge and eaten with a green leafy veg that is neither endive nor chicory (though bitterness is expected, particularly cicoria di campo, dandelion greens). Cook the beans in enough water to cover (no salt) till tender enough to collapse into a porridge. Cook the greens as spinach - in their own juices after washing, drained thoroughly. Serve beans and greens separately accompanied with new-season's olive oil (plenty).

Crudo - raw fish - is the Sunday treat. Sea-urchins (ricci) are out of season till next year.

P.S. Beloved paid-subscribers will shortly be in receipt of a recipe for almond cookies and another for limoncello (yes indeed!).