When it comes to pasta, my husband loves spaghetti. I have to say that it is my least favorite type of noodle. It is messy, hard to eat, and I love chunky sauce, which spaghetti does no favors for. Enter my new favorite pasta shape: orecchiette. It comes from the word for ear in Italian, and is translates literally as “little ears.”
The pasta is round with a concave surface, which catches tasty bits of sauce, meat or vegetables. I like that orecchiette easier to eat as well, since it can be forked easily, as opposed to rotini or ziti. It is the perfect complement for rustic sauces, unlike long thin pastas which is better suited to thinner, smoother sauces.
About a year ago, I went to a wedding at a lovely wedding in Scottsdale, Arizona called SASSI. The restaurant features Southern Italian food, so the wedding was a showstopper of hearty yet refined foods and flavors. There was a pasta course that was served in such a memorable way—two servers converged on a bowl in front of me and scooped in two different pastas at the same time. Both were very good, but one was delicious: Orecchiette con Salsiccia. The pasta features spicy Italian sausage, tomatoes and peppers.
I made Orecchiette con Salsiccia for dinner tonight. I cooked off Italian sausage that I took out of its casing. After it was cooked, I put it in a bowl and cooked chopped red, yellow and green peppers along with minced garlic. I added a bit of chicken stock and tomato paste once the vegetables were soft, and added the sausage back to the pan. I let the ingredients cook a bit and come together, and then added my cooked, slightly al dente pasta. Then, I left everything on low for about thirty minutes, adding just a touch of stock as I heated it up right before serving.
What’s your favorite shape of pasta?