Yeah, that’s just it. This typical Apulian dish has always been prepared, especially during the coldest seasons, for that day of the week, on Sunday, considered by the most day of celebration, family reunion, lunches wonderfully endless.
On Sunday, walking through the alleys of Puglia, you can feel the irresistible smell of meat sauce or turnip tops, which are usually seasoned with orecchiette. From the kitchen houses comes the scent of tradition.
Orecchiette are special for us, because it is the mothers who show you how to make them and before they had been their mothers and even before their grandmothers. That homemade pasta that is handed down from generation to generation, milking tables and knife.
If you want to try the preparation of this tasty dish here are the ingredients for 8 people:
- 800 g of ground durum wheat semolina flour
- 400 g water
Let’s see now how to make orecchiette and what is the most correct procedure, the one handed down from mother to daughter.
Pour the flour of durum wheat semolina remastered on the pastry board, form a fountain and add a little at a time the water, which must be at room temperature.
Work the dough with your hands until you get a homogeneous and elastic consistency. It should not stick to your fingers. It will take about ten minutes of processing. Give the dough a round shape and cover it with a cloth: it will have to rest at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
After the rest take a piece of dough, always taking care to leave it covered by the cloth. Work the piece, on the pastry board, without adding any other flour. He creates a strand of about 1 cm thick. From this he gets pieces about 1 cm large.
With the help of a knife with a smooth blade, take a touch and from the edge drag it on the pavement towards you. At this point, you can leave them like this (you will have realized the strascinate) or you can continue turning the strascinata on itself so as to form a concave orecchietta.
Continue, in the way you have chosen, until you finish the dough. Let the orecchiette dry on the pastry board until the water boils.
You can use fresh orecchiette, or dry them and store them for a month. Fix your handmade orecchiette on a tea towel or a pastry board. Generally, it is better to prepare them the night before, so that they can be left to dry all night.
Before we run away to prepare our orecchiette we leave you a curiosity. It seems that their shape is inspired by the roofs of the trulli of Alberobello.
