Best Fagioli Alla Mugnaia Recipes
MACCHERONI ALLA MUGNAIA CON PEPERONCINI DOLCE FORTE
The transumanza is all but a faded pastoral ritual in the Abruzzo. Once three million sheep and lambs were guided each year from summer mountain pastures to the winter lowlands and back again, but now-with the flocks reduced to several hundreds of thousands-they are transported in huge, canvas-roofed vans. And thus the pastoral life is in suspension, lulled into a smaller, less dramatic sort of existence that permits the shepherd to stay fixed, to have some dwelling or other as a home. Before, he lived with only the sky as refuge. His nobilities and his indignities, his dreaming and sleeping and, often, his dying, were fulfilled in the open air. But to hear stories from old men who, as boys, were raised to be shepherds, whose youth, nomadic and primitive, was spent in the waning epoch of the transumanza, one thinks it might hardly have been a life of desperation. Its very solitude was often its gift, say the old men. In his aloneness, the shepherd honed a curiously grand capacity to listen and discern. He became a piper of sorts, free to move about from village to village, and thus to transport to the hungry ears of each place his accumulation of stories. He was a folkloric hero, an exotic who lived by the graces. The old men smile deep in their eyes when they speak of they who live and die hanging tight to the fancy that security is palpable as a jewel. And, so, having heard the dusty memoirs and the swollen legends recounted by the old shepherd romancers, of the austere dishes they recall being cooked out in the open over their fires or under the shelter of some ruin, we wondered if someone, somewhere, might be cooking them still. Having just billeted ourselves at a modest hotel, La Bilancia, in the environs of Loreto Aprutino, spurred by the repute of its kitchen and cellars, we approached our host. Sergio is a gallant man with a burly sort of gentility. He said how strange it was that the circle had closed so quickly, that in his own lifetime, foods representing poverty had come to be of historical, gastronomic, interest to a stranger. We followed him into the kitchens, the parish of his wife, Antonietta. It was she-one who had every comestible at her disposal, kitchens with the square footage of a small village, four chefs at work under her soft-spoken guidance-who offered to cook the old dishes. They were, after all, her childhood food, the consoling plates of her grandmothers. She explained that the Abruzzesi, even when their means invite them to eat more extravagantly, still cook the old dishes at home. "They still comfort," she said. "They are cherished, they are our nostalgia." Too, she mused, this was not so true in some other regions where the foods a people ate when they were poor were fast set aside in better times. And so, because her clients partake of these dishes at home, it is other foods they long for when they sit in her dining room. Hence, it was a somewhat singular occasion for Antonietta to prepare the old foods. She set to making her lists, dispatching us on a mission to the nearby town of Penne to find a certain flour, a certain dried bean. Antonietta cooked two of her own preferred dishes from the traditions of the transumanza, from la cucina povera. And that evening, the immense room filled with guests vanquishing great hefts of roast lamb and fricasseed veal and saddle of hare and generous plates of maccheroni alla chitarra with a sauce of wild boar. She sat with us, her impeccable white cook's bonnet always in place, eating the simple food with an unembarrassed appetite. We, too, loved the dishes, as much for their own goodness as for the images they lit. The rough pasta dough is made from three flours and hand-rolled. Cut into rustic strings, this is not the ethereal pasta of the refined cucina whose destiny it is to linger about with shavings of white truffle or the belly of some poached lobster. It is the coarse stuff that is homey sop fo...
Yield serves 4
Number Of Ingredients 11
Steps:
- In a small saucepan, warm the oil and soften the garlic for several minutes, permitting it to take on a little color. Add the paprika and the crushed chiles, stirring them about. Remove from the heat, cover the oil, and let it stand for 1/2 hour or longer. Reheat the oil slightly before saucing the mugnaia.
- On a large wooden board or a pastry marble or in a large bowl, place the flours with the fine sea salt in a flat mound and form a well in the center. Break the eggs directly into the well, add 2 tablespoons of water to the well, drawing the flour from the inside wall of the mound gently into the eggs and water.
- Using your hands, continue to work the elements into a rough paste. Should the paste be too dry, add the additional tablespoon of water-or even a few drops more, if necessary-and work it vigorously. Should the paste be too wet, add a few tablespoons more of the all-purpose flour and work it with the same vigor.
- Flour is never the same, even if it comes from wheat harvested from the same field and ground at the same mill on the same day by the same miller. Age and humidity act upon it, changing its structure so that it will drink in more or less moisture.
- Knead the dough, then, deliberately and rhythmically, for 8 to 10 minutes or more, until it is smooth and resilient to your touch. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, permitting it a 20-minute rest to relax its hard-worked glutens.
- Don't bother with a pasta machine for this rustic dough. I suppose the shepherds just patted it out on a flat stone. You'll find it easy enough to roll by hand. Begin by dividing the dough into thirds, covering two of the pieces to prevent their drying while you work with the first.
- Lightly sprinkle semolina over the work surface and, wielding a long, heavy wooden rolling pin, roll out the dough in one direction, using an outward motion. Roll the dough into a circle, rotating it often as it stretches and grows thinner. When the dough is rolled and stretched to a somewhat uniform 1/4 inch, roll it up, strudel fashion, and, with a sharp knife, cut it into 1/4-inch ribbons. Unroll the ribbons, dusting them lightly with semolina, and place them on metal sheets or trays, lined with clean kitchen towels. Proceed to roll and cut the remaining portions of dough.
- The mugnaia will be ready to cook after 1/2 hour or so or will keep nicely, tucked in under the kitchen cloths, overnight. Do not refrigerate the pasta.
- To cook the mugnaia, bring abundant water to a rolling boil, add 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt and the pasta. Cover the pot. As the water returns to the boil, begin counting. Mugnaia will usually take 4 to 5 minutes to cook, but test the texture after 3 minutes and cook it just to al dente.
- Drain the pasta, leaving it somewhat wet, and return it to the still-warm cooking pot.
- Add the sauce and coat the mugnaia very well. Serve the mugnaia in shallow bowls and offer the bottle of olio santo (see page 155). Cheese is not a classic adornment to this dish. I imagine the shepherds grew weary, once in a while, of even their own good pecorino.
PASTA FAGIOLI
A traditional Italian soup. Serve with a crisp salad and a hot loaf of garlic bread and you have a meal! Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on top.
Provided by Star Pooley
Categories Soups, Stews and Chili Recipes Soup Recipes
Time 50m
Yield 4
Number Of Ingredients 13
Steps:
- Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook celery, onion, garlic, parsley, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, and salt in the hot oil until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in chicken broth, tomatoes and tomato sauce, and simmer on low for 15 to 20 minutes.
- Add pasta and cook 10 minutes, until pasta is tender.
- Add undrained beans and mix well. Heat through. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 224.6 calories, Carbohydrate 37.3 g, Cholesterol 2.3 mg, Fat 4.4 g, Fiber 7.9 g, Protein 11 g, SaturatedFat 0.6 g, Sodium 757.8 mg, Sugar 6.4 g
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