Orecchiette

Selfmade orecchiette with bear's garlic pesto and tomatos

My Italian colleagues at work are sometimes my inspiration ;) So thanks to our Italian chef Mauro I decided to give the orecchiette a try. Orecchiette means something like a small ear and it's a traditional pasta from Puglia (Apulien). Mauro comes from this region so quite often at work he is doing some orecchiette. 

I found some interesting facts about the orecchiette in the Internet. According the German Wikipedia the orecchiette were first made in France in the middle ages. Because of the form it was easy to dry and thus they were produced in big amounts and sold. At some point they landed on board some ships to Puglia and nowadays orecchiette is considered a national dish of the city of Bari and the rest of Puglia. Apparently in China there is a similar pasta form which is called cat ears.

Orecchiette are very easy but somewhat time consuming to do. You don't need a pasta machine for this.

You just have to roll the dough into long thin bars and cut it in small pieces with a knife.

Press the knife down in the middle of the dough ball and while pressing pull the knife towards you.

Finish the form with your thumb.

And ready it is...

As said, it is time consuming

to produce all this.

Tomatos for my dish. Just sautéed them in olive oil with some thyme and salt

After cooking the orecchiette in water for couple of minutes I tossed them on the pan with some self made bear's garlic pesto.

Super tasty vegetarian dinner for us.