Pasta with cauliflower was born in Sicily and it was considered a humble dish: in fact cauliflower is a very common vegetable and in the Sicilian tradition the dish is done with them accompanied by pine-seeds and sultanas (raisins). Both of them are very common and typical of the Arab kitchen and thank to them a dish can be made precious.
Ingredients:
Boccole Garofalo n.66-6 400g,
broccoli 300g,
garlic,
red hot pepper,
grated pecorino cheese,
extra virgin olive oil,
salt.
Preparation:
Wash the broccoli and boil them in salted water.
At half cooking strain them and finish to cook them in a wide pan with oil, garlic and red hot pepper.
Stir frequently and let them dry completely.
Cook Boccole GAROFALO in boiling water, drain al dente, pass them in the pan with the broccoli for some minutes.
Remove the garlic and the red hot pepper and serve pasta with grated pecorino cheese.
Variant:
When broccoli are cooked, do not drain them but pour in the same pot the Boccole cooking simultaneously with vegetables and pasta.
When pasta is al dente drain and pour boccole and broccoli in a soup tureen.
Flavor with a two half cloves of garlic, a small piece of red hot pepper, some spoonful of pecorino and oil.
Blend and serve immediately with cheese.
The sausage is the most ancient and common in all the countries where the pig is reared and eaten. The sausage seems to come from Lucania considering the text of Varrone: lucanica, from the Lucani, from them the Roman soldiers learned for the first time to know it. Lucanica is the ancient name of the sausage, still in use in some northern regions.
With the sausage.
Ingredients:
Gramigna Garofalo n.59 300g,
sausages 200g,
tomato sauce 200g, a spoon of pork fat, white wine, onion, grated Parmigiano, salt, pepper.
Preparation:
Warm the pork fat in a pan, brown a bit of onion and the sausages turning often, when they will be coloured on all the sides, add wine, make it evaporate, pour the tomato sauce, cover them with water, pierce them in more points with a fork and cook them at a low flame until that the sauce will be reduced.
With a knife skin the sausages, crumble them, put them in the sauce and flavour them for ten minutes at low flame.
In the meantime in boiling salted water cook the Gramigna GAROFALO, drain them al dente and pour it in the pan with the sauce of sausage.
Turn it with care, pass it in the dish and sprinkle with pepper and grated Parmigiano. Serve with other Parmesan.
The Caciocavallo cheese is a typical cheese of cow's milk of the Southern Italy. Ingenuously someone interpreted the strange name thinking that it was done with mare's milk. The more reliable hypothesis explain the name with the fact that on caciocavallo cheese was imprinted an image of a horse, or that the shapes, bound in couple, were hung up on horseback of a stick left to age.
Nowadays is common opinion that the word comes from the Turkish qasqaval, that indicates a similar kind of cheese. Their eternal dangling determined that the caciocavallo cheese represented the gloomy symbol of the hanged man. From the forced exile in Sicily after the revolution of 1799, Ferdinando IV of Bourbon, foreseeing his return to Naples, wrote to the Cardinal Ruffo: "Famme truvà tante casecavalle"(make find me a lot of caciocavallo cheese), euphemism to say liberals hanged man.
Preparation:
Cut the caciocavallo cheese in small pieces, collect it in a soup tureen and flavour it with oil and peppercorn.
In salted water, boil the Cappelletti GAROFALO, drain them al dente and pour them in the soup tureen with some leaves of sage.
Turn well and let dissolve the cheese, if necessary add some spoonful of boiling water of pasta and some spoonful of Parmigiano. Serve the cappelletti with other Parmigiano.
“During a lesson of medicine the teacher Taddeo, famous professor, read a text which told that if you eat aubergines for nine days you become crazy: and affirmed that 'melanzana' in fact means 'mela insana' (insane apple).
A student, fed up with the lesson, told that he wanted to do an experimental test: and he began to eat aubergines at lunch and at supper. After nine days he went to the lecture hall and told the teacher: "I would like to say a thing: the text that he read us is fake, because I did the experiment and I didn’t become crazy".
And then he stood up, lowered the trousers and ended the speech showing his bottom. "Take your notebook" said the teacher "and add a note: the properties of the vegetable are shown".
From the famous collection Il Novellino written between the 1280 and the 1320 from one or more unknown authors, in the Italian version from the original medieval tongue, edited by Aldo Buses and Carmen Covito and recently published.
With aubergine sautéed with garlic and parsley
INGREDIENTS:
Cannolicchi rigati GAROFALO n.51 400g, aubergines 1 Kg, mature tomatoes San Marzano or little tomatoes 300g, olives of Gaeta 70g, capers 30g, a clove of garlic, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt.
PREPARATION:
Wash the aubergines, cut them into dice and fry them in warm oil. In a frying pan brown the garlic, unite the tomatoes cut into pieces, fresh basil, a pinch of salt and cook the sauce at a low flame.
Then add the stoned olives, rinse capers and the fried aubergines, and make to flavour at a low flame blending. In boiling salted water cook the cannolicchi GAROFALO, drain them al dente and pour them in the pan with aubergines. Then serve.
VARIANT:
Olives and capers are optional and can be eliminated, the dish will result equally tasty with only aubergines and tomatoes.
A metropolitan legend said that the first seed of the tomatoes San Marzano arrived in Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century, as a gift of the Kingdom of the Peru to the Kingdom of Naples and it would have been planted in the countryside of San Marzano, a place from which it took its name.
More reliable the hypothesis that the tomato San Marzano came from a hybridization between the variety Fiaschella and Fiascone or from a local stock named Lampadina.
This tomato is characterized by its intense red color, bittersweet taste, scarce presence of seeds and moreover, a very important element, the skin is very easy to remove. At the end of the eighteenth century this property increased the development of its cultivation when the first industries rose, thanks to Francesco Cirio, for the production of the peeled tomatoes in can.
Ingredients:
Lumache rigate GAROFALO n.90 400, Tomatoes San Marzano 500g, onion, celery, carrot, basil, Parmigiano, extra virgin olive oil, salt.
Preparation:
Cut the tomatoes, a quarter of onion, a coast of celery, a carrot, collect all the vegetables in a pan, add the salt and cook at a low flame in order to eliminate the liquid in excess. Flavour with basil, pass the sauce into the blender. In boiling salted water put the Lumache GAROFALO, drain them al dente, pass them in a soup tureen, flavour them with the quite warm sauce, basil and grated Parmigiano, complete with excellent extra virgin olive oil.
