Orecchiette (1) : pasta with love inside

During Summer days (I am not reporting Scotland this time) lovers swarm together and enjoy reciprocal company in several activities: I remember that when my parents once went for three days to Saragozza (where Charlemagne imposed the strength of his empire, at least in the Chanson de Roland), whereas my sister was in Southern France, I had the house on my own and I was able to invite over the girl that would have become my girlfriend. Sometimes coincidences are so fruitful!
At that time, I did not fully realized how much we both loved cooking and staying in the kitchen together. So, the first culinary date spotted me as the only attendant and I made it out well with the different dishes.
Afterwords, we shared our common passion that concurred to make our bonds tighter, because it is emotional, intense and particularly charming. We keep cooking often together and once she taught me how to prepare home made orecchiette, a typical pasta format of her region, Puglia again. Orecchiette literally means little ears.

Mix up 300 ml of water, a pinch of salt (10ish gr)

and 600 gr of durum wheat semolina: knead a loaf

and then cut it into pieces. Manipulate them as snakes.

Cut the snakes into little pillows and produce the gesture

you are looking in this picture that I found in

http://www.semplicementepeperosa.com/

the correct verb should be to flip them over, and 

expert chefs use also a knife to obtain this result.

Four arguments from the weakest to the strongest

that shall convince you to produce yourself in

hand made orecchiette:

it is beautiful to do the orecchiette

 with the person you love,

because it take less time (1), you laugh a lot 

for all the wrong orecchiette that come out (2),

it is time spent making food love (3),

and finally because cooking-eating-sharing

puts you on an equal level of enjoyment (4).

From 4 to 6 people should be able to 

enjoy this amount of orecchiette.

What if you are very lazy and you prefer to buy them directly in a shop or a supermarket? First of all shame on you, but secondly I can provide some useful commercial suggestions:

Known in the rest of the world:

in my opinion their quality is acceptable

but not excellent.

For an industrial product these are very good orecchiette.

Garofalo

Saclà is another major Italian brand,

famous especially for antipasti,

yet this pack price is a bit to high

for my personal taste (2,10£)

Caroli and Fioccata: two pasta factory

that produce orecchiette employing methods that

appear to be more traditional.

Fiorillo

Tesco finest* 1,65£

During the next post, I shall try to prepare two different toppings: both of them will bring out the shape of the orechiette. And this effort will remind me how sweet will again be cooking with my favourite co-chef.

Aberdeen angus beef & ragout from Puglia

Giuseppe does not appear in the above picture. Giuseppe is a dear friend of mine: he comes from Puglia (the heel of Italy), he is a brilliant researcher and recently Oxford hired him away from Scotland. A great loss for his closest friends, even if only and luckily in geographical terms.

Giuseppe made me realize I had never tried to prepare a proper Southern ragout, which is very different form the bolognese one, and Scotland does offer one of the best varieties of beef - along with Chianina and Maremmana in Tuscany and Kobe in Japan.

Scotland is widely famous for this Highland breed 

as well. 

I have to thank Elena Rossi®, for this lovely shot.

The Aberdeen Angus beef is an hornless native variety of the cattle family. Hugh Watson, a Scottish farmer, in the mid-nineteen century improved his herd, founding and shaping the breed we are now able to consume. My vision of this food farming process equalizes the Angus beef to pedigree of race horses. Nowadays, what have been the enterprise of a single farmer, became a Society:

http://aberdeen-angus.co.uk/

Following in the footsteps of his grandmother the Queen Mother, HRH Prince Charles is the patron of the Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society. The Prince of Wales has a successful Aberdeen-Angus herd at Highgrove and takes an active interest in the Castle of Mey herd in Caithness which is now run by The Queen Elizabeth Castle of Mey Trust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbbK6-6Qtfo

(unfortunately the video is a bit disturbed,

yet worth listening)

The best cuts for this preparation

are those thought for stew or for the casserole.

What do I like of Aberdeen Angus Scotch beef? And how can I reconcile a post for vegetarians with a post devoted to best Angus beef cuts? 

In my opinion, the Angus beef is a premium cattle: it is important to preserve this native breed, secondly these animals are treated respectfully, ideally suiting to the organic approach, thirdly the local economy benefits of a high quality resource, lastly it is senseless to import expensive meat from abroad when your own one is excellent and severely controlled. My idea then stays in between carnivorous positions and vegetarian instances. Animals should be treated with respect - not as objects or industrial products: they are living beings, whose life time is not meaningless. They are part of our alimentary cycle since millennia, but this does not bring along the fact we can allow ourselves to be cruel and uncaring. I am then favorable to an ethic of dignity:

A visual concept of Dignity, thanks to Colin Firth.

Too many times indeed, it is evident how much waste-of-all-kind-of-aliments we soil our consciences with. I am only hoping to a gradual return to a naturalistic vision of what breeding and farming: quality food, care of the environment and above all regard toward the fact that these animals, though remaining animals, have a moral right to live decently in a free range condition, not as enslaved machines for meat and milk. 

Enslaved animals are sad creatures.

Let's go back to Giuseppe's ragout. Once I spotted a picture of his ragout and I decided to replicate it with a higher level of consciousness.

Chop half an onion, 1 celery rib. 

150 gr of Aberdeen angus beef.

700 ml of plum tomatoes.

Season the beef with black pepper

Brown the onion and the celery 

in some extra-virgin olive oil,

then add the meat and brown it as well.

Add a glass of white whine and one of water

Add the tomato sauce, two leaves of basil,

a garlic clove, and a drizzle of honey,

to make the meat softer and to cut down

the tomato acidity.

Let it go at a low flame for 1 hour and 1 half:

then smash with a fork the tomatoes

that did not yet melt.

Pull out the meat from the sauce and...

...wear out the dices following the meat fibers.

Put them back into the sauce,

adjust salt, black pepper, nutmeg.

Dress with the ragout of Puglia some Bronze

die Fusilli (Napolina) or some orecchiette: what the hell are orecchiette?

The next two posts will reveal this peculiar pasta format.