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Polenta / Pork Sausage Skewers

It was lightly snowing most of today in Bologna. The snow was melting as soon as it hit the ground, but it powdered the roof tiles, trees and statues, very pretty and Christmas-y. It also covered the bikes for the human pedal power energy that lights up Bologna's Christmas tree in the Piazza - wonder if anyone will be keeping warm by pedalling hard there tonight?

On to food matters. After my Skype interview with Carli in Tasmania, I put on my coat, gloves and hat and went to the market to see what looked good. I came back with pork Luganega sausages, which are narrower and leaner than the usual kind, some pre-cooked polenta, a bunch of lovely fresh Cime di Rapa and a bag of  Tarocco oranges.  Cime di Rapa is translated as mustard greens, turnip top greens and/or broccoli rabe. You get the idea. At this stage it is still very leafy and there were just a couple of early florets in among the leaves.

 
Back home and I made my purchases into lunch. I cleaned up the greens removing the tough stems. I cut up the sausages and the polenta and made up a couple of skewers alternating polenta and sausage, and then put them to cook in a little ceramic lined  pan with a little olive oil as they take longer than the greens. I decided against garlic and shelled 3 lovely Lara walnuts to go with my greens which  I squeezed out a little and put in a larger pan, and then I broke up and added the walnuts. 

Christmas Day Lunch in Campania

Minestra Maritata: capon broth, the capon meats and stuffing, varied greens

Paccheri Imbottiti al Ragù: pasta tubes stuffed with ham and ricotta baked with Naples meat sauce

Insalata di Rinforzo: salad of cauliflower with olives, capers, anchovies

Carne al Ragù: beef and pork in tomato sauce

Roast kid with peas and potatoes

Broccoli w lemon

Fresh fruit and nuts, dried prunes, dates and apricots

Mostaccioli: chocolate glazed walnut cookies

Roccoco ring shaped cookies

Struffoli: fried dough puffs finished in honey and scattered with candy sprinkles

Ciceri e Tria

Chickpea Pasta with a crunchy twist

Ciceri e Tria is the best loved pasta of Lecce in Apulia, and of all the Salento area. It is a simple Cucina Povera dish, a kind of Pasta e Fagioli made with rosemary and garlic scented chickpeas. The Ciceri are the chickpeas and Tria is the word used in Apulia to refer to pasta that is dried or fried. In this case the pasta, which is similar to Tagliatelle in shape, is made with durum wheat (semolina) flour but without eggs. The spark of genius in this dish is that part of the pasta is fried so that you get a lovely crunchiness alongside the smooth textured chickpeas and the chewy durum wheat pasta. This dish is normally served a little wet and slightly soupy, but I decided mine would be on the dry side.

Time is one of the ingredients, as you need to make your own pasta for the frying to work properly, but you can use canned chickpeas without losing any of the charm of the dish. I made the dish for two of us and used dried chickpeas. I started by making an aromatic broth to cook the chickpeas, a quarter pound of them that I'd put to soak the previous night. A leek, a bay leaf, a carrot and a celery stick, a couple of cloves of garlic and a sprig of muslin wrapped rosemary went into the pot with the chickpeas. I covered them in plenty of water and left them to simmer gently till tender.

I then got on with making the pasta dough. I combined half a pound of stone ground organic Senatore Cappelli flour with half a cup of warm water and worked them together well till the dough was very smooth. I'd bought the single variety flour at the local farmer's market. It is incredibly aromatic and filled the kitchen with heady bakery aromas. I left the dough to rest in a plastic bag for an hour or so while the chick peas simmered on, then I rolled it out on the pasta machine keeping it quite thick. I cut the noodles on the wider Tagliatelle setting floured them lightly and set them out to dry on a clean kitchen towel. And minced a single garlic clove real fine.