The recipes
The mediterranean diet: “The art of simplicity”
The Mediterranean diet is meant as an innate and instinctive vocation, a popular and shared lifestyle, an eating philosophy which refuses any excess of culinary sophistication and it searches for the authenticity of tastes and fragrances.
In obedience to this precept, food is the art of simplicity and a good chef is the one who is able to bring out the tastes from the natural products he chooses without exceeding with seasonings.
In particular, the Mediterranean diet in Salento is made up of vegetables, legumes, fishes and shellfishes from the Apulian seas, tasty meats but partially used, no spices because they cover up all the authentic tastes, and limited cooking times for almost all the food.
A separate discussion is needed for pasta and the types of semolina with which pasta is produced, they are obtained from wheat cultivated on difficult soils, often in little extended basins that spread on stony soils.
It stands to reason that this food narrates by itself its territory: a land which always emerges from dishes and invites to a constant evocation.
It is a cooking that has been able to become a place of memory, story of the senses, landscape of the “art of simplicity”.
Orecchiette with turnip tops
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 250 g of orecchiette (pasta),
- 1 (generous) kilo of turnip tops
- 2 fillets of anchovies in oil
- 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- bread crumbs
- garlic
- Salt
- Chilli pepper
Preparation:
Clean and wash the turnip tops, removing the leaves and the toughest parts of the stems. Boil the water and then add the turnip tops, cover the pot and when boiling again add the orecchiette.
While pasta is boiling, sauté in the oil 2 cloves of crushed and peeled garlic and the anchovies in oil cut into pieces by a fork. Take the stale bread crumbs, grate them and put them in the oven under the grill. Drain the pasta and the turnip tops. Out of the fire, put them again in the pot, add the garlic, the anchovies and the bread crumbs, mix them and serve.
Trofie with seafood
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 300 g of trofie (pasta)
- 1 fresh cuttlefish (200g)
- 1 kg of mussels
- 200g of genuine clams
- 200g of walnuts or truffles
- 30g of fresh leaves of rocket
- 3 cherry tomatoes
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic
- Enough salt
- Milled black pepper
Preparation:
Clean the cuttlefish, wash it well and cut it in fine strips.
Rinse the mussels and the seafood and cook with a clove of garlic, 5 tablespoons of oil and a small branch of parsley. Cover the saucepan and let the mussels and the seafood open well; drain and shell all of them, place them in a tureen, filter the liquid obtained and add it to the seafood.
In a pan with 5 tablespoons of oil brown the sliced cherry tomatoes with a clove of crushed garlic, then remove the garlic and add the cuttlefish keeping on cooking over a low heat. Once the cuttlefish is cooked, add the seafood and its liquid.
Add salt, cook the trofie in boiling salted water, drain the pasta in a tureen and add the cuttlefish and the seafood. Mix them well, sprinkle with chopped parsley and milled black pepper.
Sagne incannulate with lobster
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 300g of sagne incannulate (pasta)
- 3 medium-sized lobsters (1kg)
- 2 glasses of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 glass of white wine
- 500g of fresh tomato sauce Enough parsley
Preparation:
Sauté the fresh tomato sauce. Put the lobsters in a pan adding oil and garlic, wet with wine and let it evaporate, so now add the tomato sauce. Add parsley, pepper and season the sagne incannulate previously cooked al dente; garnish with lobsters.
Strozzapreti alla crudaiola
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 250g of strozzapreti (pasta)
- 1 kg of fresh fleshy tomatoes
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small tub of hard ricotta cheese or marzotica ricotta cheese
- Fresh basil
- Fresh chilli pepper
- Oregano
- 2 cloves of garlic
Preparation:
Break tomatoes into small pieces with their peel, put them in a terrine; crush the cloves of garlic by a knife, chop the leaves of basil, grind the chilli pepper and add the whole to the tomatoes.
Season with abundant oil adding the fresh oregano. Let the whole marinate for a couple of hours. Boil the pasta and drain it into the terrine, grate the hard ricotta cheese and mix well.
Cavatelli with green beans and tomatoes
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 200g of cavatelli (pasta)
- 200g of fresh green beans
- 250g of peeled tomatoes
- Leaves of basil
- Chilli pepper
- 1 clove of garlic
- Grated cacioricotta cheese
- Extra virgin olive oil and
- Enough salt
Preparation:
Cook the green beans in abundant salted water, then just drain them and keep them aside. In a saucepan with olive oil sauté the garlic and remove it before it gets too brown; add the crashed peeled tomatoes and salt and cook for 10 minutes. Add the green beans and leave them to gain flavour. Cook the cavatelli, drain and put them in the saucepan with the seasoning and mix well. Add the crushed basil leaves and the crumbled chilli pepper, so sprinkle with abundant cacioricotta cheese before serving.