Place the flour as a fountain, put the salt, pour the water in the center and gradually begin to knead. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and homogeneous, we will need to knead a lot. Once you have the dough on a pastry let rest for about half an hour. After this time, work the dough to obtain a long loaf of about 1.5 cm thick.

 

Cut with the tip of a knife one gnocchetto and slide it towards you, the pasta will curl forming a sort of shell. This operation is essential because it provides the surface roughness of the orecchiette. Put your shell curled on the thumb of his left hand and overturn it with the tip of the knife at this point it will become a little hat, and you have got your first orecchietta.

Continue in this way for the rest of the dough. As we form the orecchiette arrange them in a tray on a sheet of cotton or linen, or if you have the chance of a wooden surface (or there exist special containers of wood). Let it dry your orecchiette for 15-18 hours, then turn them so that the bottom can also dry out a bit. At this point you can cook the orecchiette or if you want to keep them for a long time, you can also freeze them.

Orecchiette are a type of pasta typical of Puglia (southern region of Italy), the most traditional way to eat them is with turnip greens, but many are the condiments that fit this pasta. Especially in the past in Puglia was considered the Sunday pasta. People were accustomed to eat it with the tomato sauce prepared with or without stew. Depending on the size and location of production, the orecchiette in Puglia may have a slightly different names: recchie or recchietelle, chianchiarelle, pociacche ...

However you choose to call, orecchiette prepared in a workmanlike must have specific characteristics: they must be round and concave, the thickness of the central part should be thinner than the edges, and the outer surface of the cap must be wrinkled, while the internal one should be smooth.

 

Local tradition says that the shape of orecchiette evokes the structure of the trulli. In fact it seems that this may not be pasta from Puglia and that the true origin is shrouded in mystery.

One theory suggests that this preparation is born in France in the Middle Ages, it seems that in the area of Provence were prepared with durum wheat flour "the crosets", a type of pasta in the form of discs, very thick and hollowed in the center, these shape features allow a certain ease of drying and therefore a good storage properties. Only afterwards would be spread this pasta, probably thanks to the Counts of Anjou of Provence, in the lands of Apulia. Here they would acquired their name and it would have been refined the method of preparation.

 

However, some experts argue, that the orecchiette are derived from lixulae narrated by the Latin poet Varro , which is a type of pasta made in ancient Rome round in shape and with a concave center.

Whatever the true origin of the orecchiette, now they are the heritage of the cuisine of Puglia and one of the Puglia's prides. 

Even in a deed (found at the end of '500 in the archives of the church of San Nicola in Bari), in which a father was giving a gift to his daughter bakery, you can read that he gave as the most important thing for dowry the ability to prepare recchietedde .

My grandmother is from Puglia, and when I was a boy on Sunday morning it was a tradition staying in the kitchen watching her (with her real hands) in realizing orecchiette one by one. All of them exactly the same... with a precision of a caliber... and if any was slightly deformed she discarded it and joined the rest of the dough. The hands you see in the picture belong to my mum, that with the same perseverance replicates every single movement, learned when she was a child and to realize a type of pasta that the only real Apulian hands can do.

Each serving of pasta:

 

Energy: 285.00 Kcal

Total Dietary Fiber: 3.00 g

Alcohol: 0.00 g

Total Protein: 9,58 g

Animal protein: 0.00 g

Vegetable protein: 9.58 g

Total lipids: 0.42 g

Lipids animals: 0.00 g

Plant lipids: 0.42 g

Cholesterol: 0.00 mg

Available carbohydrates: 64.67 g

Starch: 63.08 g

Sugars: 1.58 g