This post explores making
fresh orecchiette, a classic pasta with
roots in Central and Southern Italy. Although many supermarkets stock the dry
version, if you want to try fresh orecchiette
chances are you will need to make it yourself; it rarely appears on
restaurant menus. Fair warning: learning how to create this shape takes a
little time and practice, but pays worthwhile dividends. Fresh orecchiette has a wonderful chewy
texture that the dry form lacks. All you need to make it at home are semolina flour,
water and a simple dinner knife.
Orecchiette means “little ears” in Italian, but like most Italian pasta, the
shape goes by different names depending upon where it is made: it is called recchietelle in Campania, Molise and
Basilicata; orecchie di prete in Abruzzo; and orecchini in Lazio. Even within Puglia—the region most closely
associated with the shape—orecchiette goes
by a variety of names. My favorite: chagghjubbi
from the port city of Bari.
Orecchiette’s simple form suggests that it is easier to make than it is. In Flavors of Puglia [2006] Nancy Harmon
Jenkins writes that orecchiette is
“about the trickiest pasta shape I’ve ever made.” In The Mozza Cookbook [2011] Nancy Silverton introduces orecchiette as follows: “Although this
shape doesn’t look as intricate as some of the others, it is one of the most
difficult to shape, which is probably why so few restaurants make their own.”
Discouraged? Don’t be. In
his excellent new Bocca Cookbook
[2011], Jacob Kenedy writes that orecchiette
“take some practice before they come right, but after are easy as pie.” Kenedy offers both a recipe for a traditional
semolina dough and a lucid description on how to create this tricky little
shape. His recipe serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main.
- 200g semola di grano duro (semolina)
- 80 ml water
Make a semolina pasta
dough with the semola di grano duro
and 80 ml water – it should be firm but malleable. Knead well, let rest for at
least 20 minutes, then make the orecchiette.
Roll the dough into a
sausage (it may help to do this in a few batches) 1cm wide. Cut across to make
1cm dumplings. Take a cheap table knife (like the kind they used to have at
school – basic, rounded and bluntly serrated) and make the orecchiette one by one. With the flat of the knife at 30°
to the table, use a smearing action (away from your body) to press the
dumplings out, using the rounded end of the blade. It should stretch, flatten
and curl around the blade, becoming thinner in the middle than at the edges,
one of which will be slightly stuck to the blade of the knife. Put your index
finger gently against the center of the little curl of pasta, hold the loose
edge gently with your thumb, and pull the knife away, so as to invert the pasta
over your fingertip and simultaneously detach it from the blade. It should now
look like a little ear, with a slightly thick rim (the lobe), and a rough
texture on the thinner centre, from where the knife pulled against the dough…Leave
them spread out on a wooden or floured surface until you’re ready to cook—they’re
best left for half an hour or so, to become a little leathery.
Kenedy’s instructions become particularly clear when watching
someone make fresh orecchiette. (Still photographs help, but they don’t do the process justice.) If
you don’t have access to a real, live orecchiette
maker, I’ve found a particularly helpful YouTube video that documents a similar
technique. Search YouTube for “rita mimmo orecchiette”.
A few notes on Kenedy’s
recipe. I add slightly more water (90 to 100 ml instead of 80 ml) to make a
workable dough. Although Kenedy recommends “smearing” away from the body, I
think pulling towards oneself is easier. Try both ways and see which feels more
comfortable to you. Cook the orecchiette
in boiling salt water for approximately 4 to 5 minutes.
